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Dar es Salaam, 
Tanzania
7,795,114 people lived in Dar es Salaam in 2025. It is the 42nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Tanzania, where it is the capital.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Dar es Salaam's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Dar es Salaam grew
For every 10 people in Dar es Salaam in 1975, there were 260.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 13.2 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes ten million people between 2035 and 2040.
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
Dar es Salaam through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Dar es Salaam in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Tanzania · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 45 cities in Tanzania in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Dar es Salaam; 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, Dar es Salaam covered 909 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 214 km² of it. That is 27 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.8 times its size, and its people are 26.1 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 100 people in Tanzania
Its share of Tanzania
Of every 100 people in Tanzania in 2025, 11 lived in Dar es Salaam, which is 7.8 million people.
How to read this: shrink Tanzania to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Dar es Salaam; 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
- 38 Tehran Iran9,174,964
- 39 Taipei Taiwan9,136,792
- 40 Bandung Indonesia8,909,104
- 41 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia8,443,731
- 42 Dar es Salaam7,795,114
- 43 Suzhou China7,731,101
- 44 Ahmedabad India7,632,408
- 45 Hangzhou China7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan China7,363,548
In Tanzania, 2025
- 42 Dar es Salaam7,795,114
- 538 Zanzibar City966,642
- 544 Mwanza954,104
- 665 Arusha795,744
- 1025 Mbeya539,248
- 1205 Morogoro461,634
- 1677 Kigoma340,483
- 1861 Moshi309,202
- 1956 Tanga296,202
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Dar es Salaam 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 Dar es Salaam 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