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Ndola, 
Zambia
535,108 people lived in Ndola in 2025. It is the 1034th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Zambia.
Like every city on this site, Ndola 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 Ndola grew
Where Ndola had 10 people in 1975, it had 61.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 743,780 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: 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
Ndola through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ndola in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Zambia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Zambia and its 33 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Lusaka). Ndola 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, Ndola covered 113 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 32 km² of it. That is 60 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4 times its size, and its people are 6.1 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 Zambia
Its share of Zambia
Of every 100 people in Zambia in 2025, 2 lived in Ndola, which is 535,108 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Zambia; the coloured squares live in Ndola. 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
- 1030 Buram Sudan537,169
- 1031 Sao Jose dos Campos Brazil536,073
- 1032 Bettiah India535,979
- 1033 Ciudad Guayana Venezuela535,164
- 1034 Ndola535,108
- 1035 Bengbu China535,096
- 1036 Swabi Pakistan535,083
- 1037 Shillong India534,861
- 1038 Ahmednagar India534,622
In Zambia, 2025
- 135 Lusaka3,510,723
- 798 Kitwe678,749
- 1034 Ndola535,108
- 1710 Mansa335,503
- 1976 Chingola294,193
- 2177 Kabwe267,618
- 2517 Kasama233,587
- 2926 Livingstone203,972
- 4302 Kapiri Mposhi141,802
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 Ndola 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 Ndola 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