Topics
Kano, 
Nigeria
4,840,280 people lived in Kano in 2025. It is the 89th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Nigeria.
Like every city on this site, Kano is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Kano grew
Where Kano had 10 people in 1975, it had 62.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.4 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes five million people between 2025 and 2030.
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
Kano through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kano in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nigeria · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nigeria and its 457 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Lagos). Kano 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, Kano covered 430 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 133 km² of it. That is 27 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 times its size, and its people are 6.3 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 Nigeria
Its share of Nigeria
Of every 100 people in Nigeria in 2025, 2 lived in Kano, which is 4.8 million people.
How to read this: shrink Nigeria to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kano; 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
- 85 Kampala Uganda4,880,943
- 86 Zhengzhou China4,878,035
- 87 Hefei China4,867,000
- 88 Islāmābād Pakistan4,860,084
- 89 Kano4,840,280
- 90 Hong Kong Hong Kong4,749,543
- 91 Saint Petersburg Russia4,736,499
- 92 Santo Domingo Dominican Republic4,600,064
- 93 Cape Town South Africa4,508,921
In Nigeria, 2025
- 26 Lagos12,791,699
- 69 Onitsha5,627,706
- 89 Kano4,840,280
- 121 Owerri3,833,343
- 123 Ibadan3,720,721
- 211 Port Harcourt2,341,445
- 266 Kaduna1,890,448
- 271 Benin City1,845,432
- 305 Warri1,607,702
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 Kano 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 Kano 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