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Mek'elē, 
Ethiopia
305,037 people lived in Mek'elē in 2025. It is the 1881st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 13th largest in Ethiopia.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Mek'elē 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 Mek'elē grew
Count 10 people in Mek'elē in 1990 and the same count gives 52.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 580,976 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2015 and 2020. The UN first counts it as a city in 1990, 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
Mek'elē through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Mek'elē in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Ethiopia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Mek'elē is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Ethiopia in 2025, 259 in all, led by Addis Ababa, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Mek'elē covered 58 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 11 km² of it. That is 35 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1990, its built-up land has grown to 2.2 times its size, and its people are 5.3 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 Ethiopia
Its share of Ethiopia
Of every 1,000 people in Ethiopia in 2025, 2 lived in Mek'elē, which is 305,037 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Ethiopia; the coloured squares live in Mek'elē. 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
- 1877 Wakefield United Kingdom306,684
- 1878 Bankura India306,650
- 1879 Cenxi China306,146
- 1880 Golapganj Bangladesh306,017
- 1881 Mek'elē305,037
- 1882 Veys Iran304,967
- 1883 Benipur India304,786
- 1884 Gaoming China304,429
- 1885 Nukus Uzbekistan304,362
In Ethiopia, 2025
- 1448 Gonder392,767
- 1583 Dilla360,925
- 1698 Jimma336,448
- 1876 Dessie306,979
- 1881 Mek'elē305,037
- 2012 Kombolcha288,941
- 2185 Bule Hora267,051
- 2209 Arsi Negelle264,039
- 2366 Irgalem246,701
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Mek'elē are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1990 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 Mek'elē 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