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Khartoum, 
Sudan
Al-Kharṭūm
6,809,355 people lived in Khartoum in 2025. It is the 56th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Sudan, where it is the capital.
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 Khartoum's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
In its own language: Al-Kharṭūm.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Khartoum grew
Count 10 people in Khartoum in 1975 and the same count gives 78.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 9.4 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2005 and 2010.
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
Khartoum through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Khartoum in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Sudan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Khartoum is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Sudan in 2025, 105 in all, 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, Khartoum covered 971 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 268 km² of it. That is 39 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.6 times its size, and its people are 7.8 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 Sudan
Its share of Sudan
Of every 100 people in Sudan in 2025, 13 lived in Khartoum, which is 6.8 million people.
How to read this: shrink Sudan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Khartoum; 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
- 52 Riyadh Saudi Arabia6,916,417
- 53 Surat India6,908,925
- 54 Surabaya Indonesia6,843,503
- 55 Pune India6,817,951
- 56 Khartoum6,809,355
- 57 Nanjing China6,800,676
- 58 Santiago Chile6,726,045
- 59 Addis Ababa Ethiopia6,705,705
- 60 Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire6,621,711
In Sudan, 2025
- 56 Khartoum6,809,355
- 548 Nyala950,803
- 775 Kebkabiya694,415
- 826 Al-Ubayyid659,964
- 855 Al-Fashir633,077
- 944 Ad Da'ein581,730
- 1030 Buram537,169
- 1074 Port Sudan517,023
- 1140 Timerein486,586
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 Khartoum 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 Khartoum 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