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Tamale, 
Ghana
654,868 people lived in Tamale in 2025. It is the 830th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Ghana.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Tamale grew
Where Tamale had 10 people in 1975, it had 99.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 804,963 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Tamale through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tamale in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Ghana · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Ghana and its 58 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Accra). Tamale 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, Tamale covered 130 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 35 km² of it. That is 54 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 14.6 times its size, and its people are 10 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 Ghana
Its share of Ghana
Of every 100 people in Ghana in 2025, 2 lived in Tamale, which is 654,868 people.
How to read this: shrink Ghana to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Tamale; 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
- 826 Al-Ubayyid Sudan659,964
- 827 Siliguri India658,183
- 828 Bacolod Philippines655,836
- 829 Volgograd Russia655,020
- 830 Tamale654,868
- 831 Zucheng China654,599
- 832 Antwerp Belgium652,506
- 833 Changde China651,562
- 834 Mazar i sharif Afghanistan651,287
In Ghana, 2025
- 71 Accra5,592,780
- 98 Kumasi4,297,984
- 457 Sekondi-Takoradi1,127,436
- 830 Tamale654,868
- 2066 Cape Coast281,579
- 2364 Koforidua246,770
- 2371 Obuasi245,920
- 2405 Ho243,211
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 Tamale 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 Tamale 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