Topics
Geita, 
Tanzania
165,000 people lived in Geita in 2025. It is the 3670th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 18th largest in Tanzania.
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 Geita grew
Count 10 people in Geita in 2000 and the same count gives 31.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 328,702 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2035 and 2040. The UN first counts it as a city in 2000, 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
Geita through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Geita in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Tanzania · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Tanzania and its 45 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Dar es Salaam). Geita 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, Geita covered 38 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 7.3 km² of it. That is 44 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 2000, its built-up land has grown to 4.9 times its size, and its people are 3.2 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 Tanzania
Its share of Tanzania
Of every 1,000 people in Tanzania in 2025, 2 lived in Geita, which is 165,000 people.
How to read this: shrink Tanzania to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Geita; 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
- 3631 Zalmat Hubaysh Yemen166,653
- 3652 Matta Pakistan165,993
- 3659 Sandoa Democratic Republic of the Congo165,522
- 3667 Akhaura Bangladesh165,093
- 3670 Geita165,000
- 3680 Iksan-si South Korea164,566
- 3687 Embu Kenya164,283
- 3695 Durame Ethiopia163,896
- 3696 Cazombo Angola163,870
In Tanzania, 2025
- 3014 Tabora198,557
- 3121 Musoma192,622
- 3311 Sumbawanga181,940
- 3485 Bukoba173,889
- 3670 Geita165,000
- 3768 Kahama160,713
- 3895 Katoro155,625
- 4771 Mtwara128,086
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 Geita are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2000 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 Geita 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