Somerset West, South Africa

For every 10 people in Somerset West in 1980, there were 41.7 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 390,177 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2025 and 2030. 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: 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.

How to read this: every dot is one of the 95 cities in South Africa in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Johannesburg. The ringed dot in colour is Somerset West; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.

In 2025, Somerset West covered 54 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 62 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 5.9 times its size, and its people are 4.2 times as many.

How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.

Of every 1,000 people in South Africa in 2025, 4 lived in Somerset West, which is 239,943 people.

How to read this: shrink South Africa to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Somerset West; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 2436 Xinchang China240,747
2. 2437 Payyanur India240,715
3. 2438 Phan Rang – Tháp Chàm Vietnam240,480
4. 2439 Fenghua District China240,478
5. 2445 Somerset West239,943
6. 2446 Corpus Christi United States239,855
7. 2448 Dohrighat India239,251
8. 2450 Đà Lạt Vietnam239,212
9. 2458 Dosso Niger238,280

In South Africa, 2025

1. 2148 Kimberley271,078
2. 2249 Paarl259,665
3. 2275 Vanderbijlpark257,093
4. 2281 Centurion255,900
5. 2445 Somerset West239,943
6. 2675 Rustenburg220,723
7. 2715 Botshabelo-N218,046
8. 2827 Ennerdale210,428
9. 5137 Paardekraal Ext 2119,589

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.

South Africa · All the world's cities

The figures for Somerset West 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 Somerset West 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