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Maseru, 
Lesotho
286,843 people lived in Maseru in 2025. It is the 2029th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Lesotho, where it is the capital.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Maseru grew
Where Maseru had 10 people in 1980, it had 36.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 329,432 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2015 and 2020. 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
Maseru through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Maseru in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Lesotho · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Lesotho and its 1 city in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Maseru 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, Maseru covered 109 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 31 km² of it. That is 107 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 4.4 times its size, and its people are 3.7 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 100 people in Lesotho
Its share of Lesotho
Of every 100 people in Lesotho in 2025, 12 lived in Maseru, which is 286,843 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Lesotho; the coloured squares live in Maseru. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2025 Timergara Pakistan287,866
- 2026 Manta Ecuador287,756
- 2027 Vinh Long Vietnam287,685
- 2028 Kunduz Afghanistan287,295
- 2029 Maseru286,843
- 2030 Sucre Bolivia286,383
- 2032 Ashdod Israel286,310
- 2033 Jianpur India286,148
- 2034 Osmaniye Türkiye286,108
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 Maseru 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 Maseru 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