Malemba-Nkulu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Where Malemba-Nkulu had 10 people in 1995, it had 53.9 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 716,333 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015. 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: 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). Malemba-Nkulu is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.

In 2025, Malemba-Nkulu covered 20 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 2.9 km² of it. That is 7 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 3 by 3 metres. Since 1995, its built-up land has grown by 81%, and its people are 5.4 times as many.

How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.

Of every 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 3 lived in Malemba-Nkulu, which is 386,790 people.

How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Malemba-Nkulu's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 1467 Pishva Iran388,154
2. 1468 Ulyanovsk Russia387,698
3. 1469 Al Roda Egypt387,432
4. 1470 Ganja Azerbaijan386,822
5. 1471 Malemba-Nkulu386,790
6. 1472 Changping China386,664
7. 1473 Bournemouth United Kingdom386,557
8. 1474 Antofagasta Chile385,812
9. 1475 Pittsburgh United States385,498

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 1267 Gemena440,327
2. 1291 Mbandaka432,976
3. 1349 Uvira416,523
4. 1375 Kongolo410,371
5. 1471 Malemba-Nkulu386,790
6. 1504 Matadi377,297
7. 1631 Mwene-Ditu351,319
8. 1653 Ngandajika345,996
9. 1784 Mulongo321,881

How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.

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

The figures for Malemba-Nkulu 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 Malemba-Nkulu 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