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Cities · Afghanistan · capital
Kabul, 
Afghanistan
Kābul
5,635,737 people lived in Kabul in 2025. It is the 68th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Afghanistan, where it is the capital.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Kabul governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
In its own language: Kābul.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Kabul grew
Count 10 people in Kabul in 1975 and the same count gives 73.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 8.0 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Kabul through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kabul 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. Kabul 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, Kabul covered 386 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 71 km² of it. That is 13 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.2 times its size, and its people are 7.4 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 Afghanistan
Its share of Afghanistan
Of every 100 people in Afghanistan in 2025, 13 lived in Kabul, which is 5.6 million people.
How to read this: shrink Afghanistan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kabul; 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
- 64 Chengdu China6,139,874
- 65 Nairobi Kenya6,134,334
- 66 Kozhikode India6,123,872
- 67 Shenyang China5,702,638
- 68 Kabul5,635,737
- 69 Onitsha Nigeria5,627,706
- 70 Yangon Myanmar5,618,303
- 71 Accra Ghana5,592,780
- 72 Madrid Spain5,583,601
In Afghanistan, 2025
- 68 Kabul5,635,737
- 405 Herat1,259,425
- 662 Kandahar799,015
- 834 Mazar i sharif651,287
- 927 Jalalabad587,508
- 2003 Taloqan290,028
- 2028 Kunduz287,295
- 2560 Maymana229,355
- 2574 Puli Khumri228,271
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 Kabul 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 Kabul 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