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Gqeberha, 
South Africa
661,220 people lived in Gqeberha in 2025. It is the 824th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th largest in South Africa.
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 Gqeberha'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 Gqeberha grew
Count 10 people in Gqeberha in 1975 and the same count gives 26 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 657,010 people in 2050.
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
Gqeberha through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Gqeberha in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
South Africa · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Gqeberha is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of South Africa in 2025, 95 in all, led by Johannesburg, 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, Gqeberha covered 144 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 34 km² of it. That is 52 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.5 times its size, and its people are 2.6 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 South Africa
Its share of South Africa
Of every 100 people in South Africa in 2025, 1 lived in Gqeberha, which is 661,220 people.
How to read this: shrink South Africa to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Gqeberha; 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
- 820 Wuppertal Germany662,663
- 821 Kannur India662,128
- 822 Jhansi India662,059
- 823 Bogura Bangladesh661,378
- 824 Gqeberha661,220
- 825 Diyarbakir Türkiye660,826
- 826 Al-Ubayyid Sudan659,964
- 827 Siliguri India658,183
- 828 Bacolod Philippines655,836
In South Africa, 2025
- 273 Pretoria1,836,166
- 396 Klipgat1,300,816
- 398 Tembisa1,298,512
- 688 Evaton773,229
- 824 Gqeberha661,220
- 1056 Masetjhaba View522,402
- 1115 Bloemfontein496,295
- 1233 Polokwane451,786
- 1264 Chief Albert Luthuli Park441,204
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 Gqeberha 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 Gqeberha 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