Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo

For every 10 people in Bunia in 1975, there were 31.5 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 843,383 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1985 and 1990.

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

How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.

How to read this: Bunia is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 223 in all, led by Kinshasa, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.

In 2025, Bunia covered 73 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 14 km² of it. That is 24 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.9 times its size, and its people are 3.2 times as many.

How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.

Of every 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 5 lived in Bunia, which is 582,792 people.

How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the coloured squares live in Bunia. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.

In the world, 2025

1. 937 Adama Ethiopia584,854
2. 938 Ujjain India583,405
3. 939 Madalla Nigeria583,367
4. 940 Oujda Morocco583,116
5. 941 Bunia582,792
6. 942 Lodz Poland582,659
7. 943 Rajamahendravaram India582,520
8. 944 Ad Da'ein Sudan581,730
9. 945 Nimule South Sudan581,444

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 654 Goma809,601
2. 704 Kalemie758,379
3. 741 Kamina724,982
4. 809 Likasi673,034
5. 941 Bunia582,792
6. 1003 Kikwit549,102
7. 1072 Manono517,304
8. 1224 Butembo454,857
9. 1244 Kolwezi446,709

How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.

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

The figures for Bunia 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 Bunia 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