Kongolo, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Where Kongolo had 10 people in 2000, it had 62.5 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 721,416 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2015 and 2020. 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: 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.

How to read this: Kongolo 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, led by Kinshasa, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.

In 2025, Kongolo covered 31 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 5.2 km² of it. That is 13 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 2000, its built-up land has grown to 2.6 times its size, and its people are 6.2 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 Kongolo, which is 410,371 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 Kongolo; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 1371 Bharuch India411,095
2. 1372 Belkuchi Bangladesh410,861
3. 1373 Albuquerque United States410,810
4. 1374 Kushtia Bangladesh410,514
5. 1375 Kongolo410,371
6. 1376 Huangyan District China410,213
7. 1377 Windhoek Namibia409,758
8. 1378 Nganjuk Indonesia409,447
9. 1379 Mazatlán Mexico409,143

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 1244 Kolwezi446,709
2. 1267 Gemena440,327
3. 1291 Mbandaka432,976
4. 1349 Uvira416,523
5. 1375 Kongolo410,371
6. 1471 Malemba-Nkulu386,790
7. 1504 Matadi377,297
8. 1631 Mwene-Ditu351,319
9. 1653 Ngandajika345,996

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 Kongolo 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 Kongolo 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