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Cotonou, 
Benin
2,506,489 people lived in Cotonou in 2025. It is the 198th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Benin, 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 Cotonou grew
Count 10 people in Cotonou in 1975 and the same count gives 68.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 3.4 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000.
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.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Cotonou through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Cotonou in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Benin · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 29 cities in Benin in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Cotonou; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Cotonou covered 499 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 120 km² of it. That is 48 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.7 times its size, and its people are 6.9 times as many.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in Benin
Its share of Benin
Of every 100 people in Benin in 2025, 17 lived in Cotonou, which is 2.5 million people.
How to read this: shrink Benin to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Cotonou; 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
- 194 Milan Italy2,599,022
- 195 Caracas Venezuela2,576,666
- 196 Manchester United Kingdom2,535,427
- 197 Quito Ecuador2,534,914
- 198 Cotonou2,506,489
- 199 Bhopal India2,487,205
- 200 Curitiba Brazil2,475,352
- 201 Tunis Tunisia2,473,428
- 202 Dighwara India2,469,443
In Benin, 2025
- 198 Cotonou2,506,489
- 642 Porto-Novo818,617
- 1433 Parakou395,528
- 1981 Bohicon293,833
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.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Cotonou 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 Cotonou 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