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Gaborone, 
Botswana
254,517 people lived in Gaborone in 2025. It is the 2293rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Botswana, 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 Gaborone grew
Count 10 people in Gaborone in 2010 and the same count gives 33.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 352,396 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 2010, when it passed 50,000 people.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Gaborone through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Gaborone in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Botswana · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 4 cities in Botswana in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Gaborone; 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, Gaborone covered 106 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 32 km² of it. That is 125 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 11 by 11 metres. Since 2010, its built-up land has grown to 7.8 times its size, and its people are 3.3 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 Botswana
Its share of Botswana
Of every 100 people in Botswana in 2025, 10 lived in Gaborone, which is 254,517 people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Botswana, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Gaborone's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2283 Punto Fijo Venezuela255,662
- 2288 Skikda Algeria255,379
- 2289 Arkhangelsk Russia254,797
- 2290 Shakar Garh Pakistan254,655
- 2293 Gaborone254,517
- 2294 Pathein Myanmar253,953
- 2295 Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina253,857
- 2299 Borigaon India253,566
- 2300 Rabak Sudan253,166
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 Gaborone are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2010 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 Gaborone 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