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Lokoja, 
Nigeria
629,547 people lived in Lokoja in 2025. It is the 862nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 30th largest in Nigeria.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Lokoja 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 Lokoja grew
Count 10 people in Lokoja in 1980 and the same count gives 121.3 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 1980, 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.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Lokoja through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Lokoja in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nigeria · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nigeria and its 457 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Lagos). Lokoja is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Lokoja covered 96 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 18 km² of it. That is 29 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 10 times its size, and its people are 12.1 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 100 people in Nigeria
Its share of Nigeria
Of every 1,000 people in Nigeria in 2025, 3 lived in Lokoja, which is 629,547 people.
How to read this: shrink Nigeria to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Lokoja; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 858 Ajmer India631,176
- 859 Qujing China630,828
- 860 Benghazi Libya630,479
- 861 Seeb Oman630,072
- 862 Lokoja629,547
- 863 Lviv Ukraine627,280
- 864 Chiang Mai Thailand626,629
- 865 Zagreb Croatia623,091
- 866 Pingxiang China623,055
In Nigeria, 2025
- 753 Zaria712,688
- 766 Akure700,747
- 807 Calabar673,427
- 841 Bauchi642,082
- 862 Lokoja629,547
- 911 Ado Ekiti598,230
- 916 Ogale595,099
- 917 Katsina594,775
- 933 Yenagoa586,393
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.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Lokoja are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1980 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 Lokoja 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