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Cities · Mozambique · capital
Maputo, 
Mozambique
3,166,328 people lived in Maputo in 2025. It is the 154th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Mozambique, where it is the capital.
Like every city on this site, Maputo is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Maputo grew
For every 10 people in Maputo in 1975, there were 67.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.3 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1985 and 1990.
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.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Maputo through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Maputo in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Mozambique · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Mozambique and its 48 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Maputo 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, Maputo covered 481 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 136 km² of it. That is 43 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.5 times its size, and its people are 6.8 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 100 people in Mozambique
Its share of Mozambique
Of every 100 people in Mozambique in 2025, 9 lived in Maputo, which is 3.2 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Mozambique, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Maputo's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 150 Kathmandu Nepal3,231,516
- 151 Kunming China3,228,117
- 152 Ouagadougou Burkina Faso3,206,222
- 153 Durban South Africa3,177,927
- 154 Maputo3,166,328
- 155 San Francisco United States3,163,486
- 156 Kalyan-Dombivli India3,163,424
- 157 Guayaquil Ecuador3,157,825
- 158 Salvador Brazil3,135,157
In Mozambique, 2025
- 154 Maputo3,166,328
- 584 Nampula885,780
- 892 Beira608,097
- 1228 Chimoio453,521
- 1271 Quelimane438,554
- 1334 Tete421,174
- 1975 Lichinga294,317
- 2122 Nacala273,732
- 2232 Pemba261,380
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.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Maputo are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1975 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 Maputo 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