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N'Djaména, 
Chad
1,934,909 people lived in N'Djaména in 2025. It is the 257th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Chad, where it is the capital.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and N'Djaména's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How N'Djaména grew
For every 10 people in N'Djaména in 1975, there were 87.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 3.0 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2005 and 2010.
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
N'Djaména through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in N'Djaména in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Chad · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Chad and its 37 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. N'Djaména 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, N'Djaména covered 239 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 70 km² of it. That is 36 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.9 times its size, and its people are 8.8 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 Chad
Its share of Chad
Of every 100 people in Chad in 2025, 9 lived in N'Djaména, which is 1.9 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Chad, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have N'Djaména's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 253 Jamshedpur India1,956,840
- 254 Minsk Belarus1,950,680
- 255 Puebla Mexico1,947,971
- 256 Freetown Sierra Leone1,935,761
- 257 N'Djaména1,934,909
- 258 Beni Democratic Republic of the Congo1,923,700
- 259 Tarogong Indonesia1,917,036
- 260 San Diego United States1,915,114
- 261 Lisbon Portugal1,913,798
In Chad, 2025
- 257 N'Djaména1,934,909
- 1254 Abéché443,793
- 2063 Moundou281,943
- 2096 Sarh276,978
- 2647 Mongo223,205
- 2795 Am Timan212,167
- 3588 Faya-Largeau168,302
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 N'Djaména 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 N'Djaména 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