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Ghazni, 
Afghanistan
109,080 people lived in Ghazni in 2025. It is the 5670th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 37th largest in Afghanistan.
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 Ghazni grew
Where Ghazni had 10 people in 1975, it had 2.9 in 2025, fewer than it started with.
On the UN's projection it will have 132,556 people in 2050. The UN's figures for Ghazni fall from 373,781 in 1975 to 105,261 in 2020. The UN rates its own confidence in the 1975 figure as moderate: cities are counted from census maps, and where those are old or coarse the figures are least certain.
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
Ghazni through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ghazni in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Afghanistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Afghanistan and its 85 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Kabul). Ghazni 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, Ghazni covered 21 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 4.4 km² of it. That is 40 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.6 times its size, and its people have fallen by 71%.
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 Afghanistan
Its share of Afghanistan
Of every 1,000 people in Afghanistan in 2025, 2 lived in Ghazni, which is 109,080 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Afghanistan, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Ghazni's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 5488 Qeysar112,398
- 5613 Gouripur Bangladesh109,980
- 5616 Akbarpur India109,949
- 5649 Baghlan109,385
- 5670 Ghazni109,080
- 5849 Bhuapur Bangladesh105,501
- 5978 Busisi Democratic Republic of the Congo103,613
- 6060 Karamile Ethiopia101,975
- 6225 Cuamba Mozambique99,179
In Afghanistan, 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 Ghazni 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 Ghazni 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