Likasi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Count 10 people in Likasi in 1995 and the same count gives 82.1 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 1.4 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2035 and 2040. The UN first counts it as a city in 1995, 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: every dot is one of the 223 cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Kinshasa. The ringed dot in colour is Likasi; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.

In 2025, Likasi covered 68 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 17 km² of it. That is 26 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1995, its built-up land has grown to 2.2 times its size, and its people are 8.2 times as many.

How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.

Of every 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 6 lived in Likasi, which is 673,034 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 Likasi; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 805 Barcelona Venezuela674,757
2. 806 Sha Tin Hong Kong674,476
3. 807 Calabar Nigeria673,427
4. 808 Jiamusi China673,406
5. 809 Likasi673,034
6. 810 Kudus Indonesia671,940
7. 811 Veracruz Mexico668,350
8. 812 Palermo Italy667,442
9. 813 Maradi Niger666,205

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 574 Kisangani900,330
2. 654 Goma809,601
3. 704 Kalemie758,379
4. 741 Kamina724,982
5. 809 Likasi673,034
6. 941 Bunia582,792
7. 1003 Kikwit549,102
8. 1072 Manono517,304
9. 1224 Butembo454,857

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.

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

The figures for Likasi are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1995 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 Likasi 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