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Parakou, 
Benin
395,528 people lived in Parakou in 2025. It is the 1433rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Benin.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Parakou 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 Parakou grew
Count 10 people in Parakou in 1985 and the same count gives 65.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 728,028 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015. The UN first counts it as a city in 1985, when it passed 50,000 people.
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.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Parakou through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Parakou in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Benin · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 29 cities in Benin in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Cotonou. The ringed dot in colour is Parakou; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Parakou covered 87 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 24 km² of it. That is 60 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1985, its built-up land has grown to 3.6 times its size, and its people are 6.6 times as many.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Benin
Its share of Benin
Of every 100 people in Benin in 2025, 3 lived in Parakou, which is 395,528 people.
How to read this: shrink Benin to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Parakou; 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
- 1429 Heze China397,886
- 1430 Madiun Indonesia397,871
- 1431 Mit Habib Egypt397,104
- 1432 Dinajpur Bangladesh396,235
- 1433 Parakou395,528
- 1434 Xinxing China395,115
- 1435 Khandwa India394,910
- 1436 Colorado Springs United States394,888
- 1437 Kanchipuram India394,850
In Benin, 2025
- 198 Cotonou2,506,489
- 642 Porto-Novo818,617
- 1433 Parakou395,528
- 1981 Bohicon293,833
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 Parakou are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1985 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 Parakou 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