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El Mahalla El Kubra, 
Egypt
1,156,501 people lived in El Mahalla El Kubra in 2025. It is the 442nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th largest in Egypt.
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 El Mahalla El Kubra'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 El Mahalla El Kubra grew
Where El Mahalla El Kubra had 10 people in 1975, it had 30 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2015 and 2020.
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.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
El Mahalla El Kubra through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in El Mahalla El Kubra in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Egypt · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Egypt and its 219 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Cairo). El Mahalla El Kubra 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, El Mahalla El Kubra covered 91 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 18 km² of it. That is 15 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.3 times its size, and its people are 3 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 Egypt
Its share of Egypt
Of every 1,000 people in Egypt in 2025, 10 lived in El Mahalla El Kubra, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Egypt, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have El Mahalla El Kubra's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 438 Bandar Lampung Indonesia1,184,054
- 439 Yueqing China1,160,214
- 440 Cabinda Angola1,157,345
- 441 Serrekunda Gambia1,156,903
- 442 El Mahalla El Kubra1,156,501
- 443 Jammu India1,154,466
- 444 Kirkuk Iraq1,153,160
- 445 Rosario Argentina1,151,717
- 446 Touba Senegal1,151,552
In Egypt, 2025
- 239 Banha2,088,520
- 285 El Mansura1,712,781
- 356 Al Zaqaziq1,416,734
- 357 Asyut1,406,963
- 442 El Mahalla El Kubra1,156,501
- 461 Suhaj1,123,349
- 504 Tanta1,018,577
- 615 Port Said849,767
- 620 Faiyum846,831
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 El Mahalla El Kubra 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 El Mahalla El Kubra 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