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Jijiga, 
Ethiopia
422,225 people lived in Jijiga in 2025. It is the 1327th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th largest in Ethiopia.
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 Jijiga grew
Count 10 people in Jijiga in 1975 and the same count gives 37.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 594,877 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Jijiga through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Jijiga in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Ethiopia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 259 cities in Ethiopia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Addis Ababa. The ringed dot in colour is Jijiga; 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, Jijiga covered 42 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 9.5 km² of it. That is 22 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.2 times its size, and its people are 3.7 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in Ethiopia
Its share of Ethiopia
Of every 1,000 people in Ethiopia in 2025, 3 lived in Jijiga, which is 422,225 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Ethiopia; the coloured squares live in Jijiga. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1323 Sumgayit Azerbaijan422,836
- 1324 Shaoguan China422,509
- 1325 Bremen Germany422,414
- 1326 Niigata Japan422,238
- 1327 Jijiga422,225
- 1328 Longyan China422,165
- 1329 Tucson United States422,107
- 1330 Chișinău Moldova422,035
- 1331 Bathinda India421,753
In Ethiopia, 2025
- 1146 Dire Dawa483,674
- 1230 Shashamane452,945
- 1250 Hawassa444,909
- 1257 Bishoftu442,776
- 1327 Jijiga422,225
- 1448 Gonder392,767
- 1583 Dilla360,925
- 1698 Jimma336,448
- 1876 Dessie306,979
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Jijiga 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 Jijiga 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