Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

For every 10 people in Bukavu in 1975, there were 28.3 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2025 and 2030.

projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low

How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.

How to read this: every dot is one of the 223 cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Kinshasa. The ringed dot in colour is Bukavu; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.

In 2025, Bukavu covered 72 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 16 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.3 times its size, and its people are 2.8 times as many.

How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.

Of every 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 8 lived in Bukavu, which is 948,948 people.

How to read this: shrink the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Bukavu; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 546 Faizabad India952,074
2. 547 Darbhanga India950,875
3. 548 Nyala Sudan950,803
4. 549 Trujillo Peru949,018
5. 550 Bukavu948,948
6. 551 Krishnanagar India948,788
7. 552 Namangan Uzbekistan947,465
8. 553 Linfen China945,174
9. 554 Homs Syria940,460

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 176 Lubumbashi2,832,853
2. 258 Beni1,923,700
3. 336 Kananga1,504,370
4. 487 Tshikapa1,054,686
5. 550 Bukavu948,948
6. 574 Kisangani900,330
7. 654 Goma809,601
8. 704 Kalemie758,379
9. 741 Kamina724,982

How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.

Democratic Republic of the Congo · All the world's cities

The figures for Bukavu are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1975 to 2025, then projection to 2050. Projected years are drawn hatched, and the UN publishes no range of uncertainty for a city. What a city means here, how the UN measures one, and why that number can differ from the one Bukavu publishes about itself: how the figures here are put together.

Sources: UN WUP 2025 · Natural Earth · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries