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Shendi, 
Sudan
252,344 people lived in Shendi in 2025. It is the 2308th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 17th largest in Sudan.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Shendi 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 Shendi grew
Count 10 people in Shendi in 1980 and the same count gives 24.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 446,786 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 1980, when it passed 50,000 people.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Shendi through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Shendi in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Sudan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 105 cities in Sudan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Khartoum. The ringed dot in colour is Shendi; 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, Shendi covered 52 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 11 km² of it. That is 42 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 2.6 times its size, and its people are 2.4 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 Sudan
Its share of Sudan
Of every 1,000 people in Sudan in 2025, 5 lived in Shendi, which is 252,344 people.
How to read this: shrink Sudan to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Shendi; 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
- 2299 Borigaon India253,566
- 2300 Rabak253,166
- 2302 Hadejia Nigeria252,778
- 2303 Azare Nigeria252,755
- 2308 Shendi252,344
- 2310 Rosetta Egypt252,147
- 2312 Sunamganj Bangladesh251,822
- 2313 Tiaret Algeria251,576
- 2314 Vladimir Russia251,498
In Sudan, 2025
- 1491 Kas381,286
- 1808 Al-Qadarif317,258
- 2087 Saraf `Umrah278,467
- 2300 Rabak253,166
- 2308 Shendi252,344
- 2459 Derudeib238,164
- 2513 El Geneina233,696
- 2523 Atbara232,808
- 2869 Mellit207,693
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 Shendi are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1980 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 Shendi 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