Matadi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Where Matadi had 10 people in 1975, it had 38.5 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 526,486 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000.

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.

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 Matadi; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.

In 2025, Matadi covered 36 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 11 km² of it. That is 30 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.4 times its size, and its people are 3.8 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 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 3 lived in Matadi, which is 377,297 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 Matadi; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 1500 Lop Buri Thailand378,160
2. 1501 Bengkulu Indonesia378,066
3. 1502 Tripoli Lebanon377,937
4. 1503 Kralpora India377,602
5. 1504 Matadi377,297
6. 1505 Jizzakh Uzbekistan376,607
7. 1506 Gamboru Nigeria376,374
8. 1507 Mirpur Khas Pakistan376,343
9. 1508 Stavropol Russia376,062

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025

1. 1291 Mbandaka432,976
2. 1349 Uvira416,523
3. 1375 Kongolo410,371
4. 1471 Malemba-Nkulu386,790
5. 1504 Matadi377,297
6. 1631 Mwene-Ditu351,319
7. 1653 Ngandajika345,996
8. 1784 Mulongo321,881
9. 1791 Ilebo321,392

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.

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

The figures for Matadi 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 Matadi 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