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Cities · Democratic Republic of the Congo · capital
Kinshasa, 
Democratic Republic of the Congo
10,943,641 people lived in Kinshasa in 2025. It is the 30th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is the capital.
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 Kinshasa grew
Count 10 people in Kinshasa in 1975 and the same count gives 105.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 13.2 million people in 2050. It passed ten million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Kinshasa through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kinshasa in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Kinshasa is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 223 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, Kinshasa covered 511 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 174 km² of it. That is 16 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 64%, and its people are 10.6 times as many.
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 the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Its share of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Of every 100 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 10 lived in Kinshasa, which is 10.9 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the coloured squares live in Kinshasa. 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
- 26 Lagos Nigeria12,791,699
- 27 Los Angeles United States12,740,420
- 28 Luanda Angola11,370,127
- 29 Chennai India11,153,205
- 30 Kinshasa10,943,641
- 31 Bogotá Colombia10,624,315
- 32 Lima Peru10,580,241
- 33 London United Kingdom10,416,420
- 34 Hajipur India9,941,510
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025
- 30 Kinshasa10,943,641
- 130 Kasaï-Oriental3,605,738
- 176 Lubumbashi2,832,853
- 258 Beni1,923,700
- 336 Kananga1,504,370
- 487 Tshikapa1,054,686
- 550 Bukavu948,948
- 574 Kisangani900,330
- 654 Goma809,601
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 Kinshasa 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 Kinshasa 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