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Songea, 
Tanzania
223,567 people lived in Songea in 2025. It is the 2641st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 11th largest in Tanzania.
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 Songea'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 Songea grew
Count 10 people in Songea in 1995 and the same count gives 36.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 351,724 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 1995, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Songea through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Songea in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Tanzania · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 45 cities in Tanzania in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Dar es Salaam. The ringed dot in colour is Songea; 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, Songea covered 51 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 11 km² of it. That is 48 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1995, its built-up land has grown to 2.3 times its size, and its people are 3.6 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 100 people in Tanzania
Its share of Tanzania
Of every 1,000 people in Tanzania in 2025, 3 lived in Songea, which is 223,567 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Tanzania, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Songea's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2627 Manfalut Egypt224,667
- 2630 Ramgarh India224,417
- 2632 Navoiy Uzbekistan224,363
- 2639 Habiganj Bangladesh223,874
- 2641 Songea223,567
- 2647 Mongo Chad223,205
- 2648 Ahmedpur East Pakistan223,056
- 2649 Buea Cameroon222,996
- 2652 Sambrial Pakistan222,828
In Tanzania, 2025
- 1677 Kigoma340,483
- 1861 Moshi309,202
- 1956 Tanga296,202
- 2166 Dodoma269,047
- 2641 Songea223,567
- 2959 Iringa201,525
- 3014 Tabora198,557
- 3121 Musoma192,622
- 3311 Sumbawanga181,940
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Songea are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1995 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 Songea 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