Topics
Franceville, 
Gabon
294,863 people lived in Franceville in 2025. It is the 1969th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Gabon.
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 Franceville grew
Count 10 people in Franceville in 2005 and the same count gives 29.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 569,220 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 2005, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Franceville through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Franceville in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Gabon · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Franceville is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Gabon in 2025, 6 in all, led by Libreville, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Franceville covered 47 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 6.9 km² of it. That is 23 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 2005, its built-up land has grown by 68%, and its people are 2.9 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 Gabon
Its share of Gabon
Of every 100 people in Gabon in 2025, 11 lived in Franceville, which is 294,863 people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Gabon, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Franceville's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1965 Barinas Venezuela295,298
- 1966 Hechuan China295,189
- 1967 Wardha India295,117
- 1968 Yanjiao China294,943
- 1969 Franceville294,863
- 1970 Khanpur Pakistan294,821
- 1971 Oryol Russia294,739
- 1972 Simferopol Ukraine294,735
- 1973 Kasumbalesa Democratic Republic of the Congo294,623
In Gabon, 2025
- 562 Libreville921,216
- 1969 Franceville294,863
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 Franceville are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2005 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 Franceville 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