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Cities · South Africa · capital
Cape Town, 
South Africa
4,508,921 people lived in Cape Town in 2025. It is the 93rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in South Africa, where it is the capital.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Cape Town grew
Where Cape Town had 10 people in 1975, it had 45.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.1 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes five million people between 2030 and 2035.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Cape Town through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Cape Town in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
South Africa · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: South Africa and its 95 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Johannesburg). Cape Town is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Cape Town covered 715 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 191 km² of it. That is 42 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3 times its size, and its people are 4.6 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 100 people in South Africa
Its share of South Africa
Of every 100 people in South Africa in 2025, 7 lived in Cape Town, which is 4.5 million people.
How to read this: shrink South Africa to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Cape Town; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 89 Kano Nigeria4,840,280
- 90 Hong Kong Hong Kong4,749,543
- 91 Saint Petersburg Russia4,736,499
- 92 Santo Domingo Dominican Republic4,600,064
- 93 Cape Town4,508,921
- 94 Casablanca Morocco4,457,471
- 95 Mogadishu Somalia4,399,430
- 96 Harbin China4,376,259
- 97 Kanpur India4,329,973
In South Africa, 2025
- 50 Johannesburg7,077,175
- 93 Cape Town4,508,921
- 153 Durban3,177,927
- 273 Pretoria1,836,166
- 396 Klipgat1,300,816
- 398 Tembisa1,298,512
- 688 Evaton773,229
- 824 Gqeberha661,220
- 1056 Masetjhaba View522,402
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.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Cape Town 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 Cape Town 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