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Owerri, 
Nigeria
3,833,343 people lived in Owerri in 2025. It is the 121st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Nigeria.
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 Owerri'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 Owerri grew
For every 10 people in Owerri in 1975, there were 622.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.8 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes five million people between 2030 and 2035.
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
Owerri through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Owerri in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nigeria · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nigeria and its 457 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Lagos). Owerri 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, Owerri covered 1,200 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 186 km² of it. That is 49 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 32.1 times its size, and its people are 62.2 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 Nigeria
Its share of Nigeria
Of every 100 people in Nigeria in 2025, 2 lived in Owerri, which is 3.8 million people.
How to read this: shrink Nigeria to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Owerri; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 117 Tashkent Uzbekistan3,935,793
- 118 Antananarivo Madagascar3,916,219
- 119 Varanasi India3,858,863
- 120 Dakar Senegal3,852,475
- 121 Owerri3,833,343
- 122 Ürümqi China3,755,144
- 123 Ibadan3,720,721
- 124 Recife Brazil3,691,196
- 125 Chicago United States3,683,385
In Nigeria, 2025
- 26 Lagos12,791,699
- 69 Onitsha5,627,706
- 89 Kano4,840,280
- 121 Owerri3,833,343
- 123 Ibadan3,720,721
- 211 Port Harcourt2,341,445
- 266 Kaduna1,890,448
- 271 Benin City1,845,432
- 305 Warri1,607,702
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.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Owerri 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 Owerri 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