Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo

For every 10 people in Goma in 1975, there were 47.3 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 1.2 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2035 and 2040.

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.

How to read this: every dot is one of the 223 cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Kinshasa. The ringed dot in colour is Goma; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.

In 2025, Goma covered 84 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 24 km² of it. That is 29 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.9 times its size, and its people are 4.7 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 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 7 lived in Goma, which is 809,601 people.

How to read this: shrink the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Goma; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 650 Sukkur Pakistan812,885
2. 651 Barquisimeto Venezuela812,384
3. 652 Quzhou China811,735
4. 653 Detroit United States809,894
5. 654 Goma809,601
6. 655 Pontianak Indonesia808,759
7. 656 Udaipur India807,617
8. 657 Jining China803,706
9. 658 Andijon Uzbekistan803,518

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 336 Kananga1,504,370
2. 487 Tshikapa1,054,686
3. 550 Bukavu948,948
4. 574 Kisangani900,330
5. 654 Goma809,601
6. 704 Kalemie758,379
7. 741 Kamina724,982
8. 809 Likasi673,034
9. 941 Bunia582,792

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.

Democratic Republic of the Congo · All the world's cities

The figures for Goma 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 Goma 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