Topics
Cities · Sierra Leone · capital
Freetown, 
Sierra Leone
1,935,761 people lived in Freetown in 2025. It is the 256th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Sierra Leone, 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 Freetown'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 Freetown grew
Where Freetown had 10 people in 1975, it had 62.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2005 and 2010.
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
Freetown through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Freetown in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Sierra Leone · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Freetown is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Sierra Leone in 2025, 11 in all, 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, Freetown covered 210 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 51 km² of it. That is 26 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.4 times its size, and its people are 6.2 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 Sierra Leone
Its share of Sierra Leone
Of every 100 people in Sierra Leone in 2025, 22 lived in Freetown, which is 1.9 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Sierra Leone; the coloured squares live in Freetown. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 252 Sapporo Japan1,964,519
- 253 Jamshedpur India1,956,840
- 254 Minsk Belarus1,950,680
- 255 Puebla Mexico1,947,971
- 256 Freetown1,935,761
- 257 N'Djaména Chad1,934,909
- 258 Beni Democratic Republic of the Congo1,923,700
- 259 Tarogong Indonesia1,917,036
- 260 San Diego United States1,915,114
In Sierra Leone, 2025
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 Freetown 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 Freetown 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