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Kisumu, 
Kenya
430,532 people lived in Kisumu in 2025. It is the 1299th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Kenya.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Kisumu 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 Kisumu grew
For every 10 people in Kisumu in 1975, there were 54.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 618,843 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Kisumu through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kisumu in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Kenya · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 50 cities in Kenya in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Nairobi. The ringed dot in colour is Kisumu; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Kisumu covered 77 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 34 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.3 times its size, and its people are 5.4 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 Kenya
Its share of Kenya
Of every 1,000 people in Kenya in 2025, 7 lived in Kisumu, which is 430,532 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Kenya; the coloured squares live in Kisumu. 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
- 1295 Takasaki [Maebashi] Japan431,687
- 1296 Padrauna India431,649
- 1297 Kosti Sudan431,504
- 1298 Florence Italy430,806
- 1299 Kisumu430,532
- 1300 Katihar India430,470
- 1301 Chandpur Bangladesh430,144
- 1302 Providence United States429,694
- 1303 Santiago de Cuba Cuba429,537
In Kenya, 2025
- 65 Nairobi6,134,334
- 348 Mombasa1,456,207
- 955 Nakuru574,091
- 1299 Kisumu430,532
- 1346 Eldoret418,175
- 1720 Garissa333,505
- 2526 Mutuati232,440
- 2983 Kisii200,579
- 3249 Naivasha185,944
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 Kisumu 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 Kisumu 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