Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Where Kolwezi had 10 people in 2000, it had 64.6 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 1.1 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2045 and 2050. The UN first counts it as a city in 2000, when it passed 50,000 people.

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.

How to read this: the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its 223 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Kinshasa). Kolwezi is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.

In 2025, Kolwezi covered 89 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 26 km² of it. That is 58 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 2000, its built-up land has grown to 3.3 times its size, and its people are 6.5 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 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 4 lived in Kolwezi, which is 446,709 people.

How to read this: shrink the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kolwezi; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 1240 Ramadi Iraq449,183
2. 1241 Mannheim Germany448,203
3. 1242 Canning India447,522
4. 1243 Zoucheng China447,484
5. 1244 Kolwezi446,709
6. 1245 Sirajganj Bangladesh446,632
7. 1246 Parbhani India446,508
8. 1247 Pematang Siantar Indonesia446,269
9. 1248 Ogbomosho Nigeria445,090

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 941 Bunia582,792
2. 1003 Kikwit549,102
3. 1072 Manono517,304
4. 1224 Butembo454,857
5. 1244 Kolwezi446,709
6. 1267 Gemena440,327
7. 1291 Mbandaka432,976
8. 1349 Uvira416,523
9. 1375 Kongolo410,371

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.

Democratic Republic of the Congo · All the world's cities

The figures for Kolwezi are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2000 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 Kolwezi 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