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Kapoeta, 
South Sudan
270,167 people lived in Kapoeta in 2025. It is the 2156th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 5th largest in South Sudan.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Kapoeta governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Kapoeta grew
Where Kapoeta had 10 people in 2010, it had 36.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 404,671 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 2010, when it passed 50,000 people.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Kapoeta through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kapoeta in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
South Sudan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: South Sudan and its 25 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Nimule). Kapoeta 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, Kapoeta covered 11 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 0.8 km² of it.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in South Sudan
Its share of South Sudan
Of every 100 people in South Sudan in 2025, 2 lived in Kapoeta, which is 270,167 people.
How to read this: shrink South Sudan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kapoeta; 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
- 2151 Eket Nigeria270,603
- 2152 Nagano Japan270,476
- 2153 Saint-Louis Senegal270,413
- 2155 Ambano Madagascar270,357
- 2156 Kapoeta270,167
- 2157 Saghatta Bangladesh270,148
- 2158 Minakhan India270,142
- 2159 Muriya India269,810
- 2160 Ijebu-Igbo Nigeria269,742
In South Sudan, 2025
- 945 Nimule581,444
- 1316 Torit424,731
- 1453 Juba391,311
- 1740 Riwoto330,053
- 2156 Kapoeta270,167
- 2578 Yei228,087
- 2796 Narus212,131
- 5371 Imehejek114,546
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 Kapoeta are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2010 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 Kapoeta 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