The largest urban area in Africa is Cairo, followed by Kinshasa and Lagos. Cairo has 25.2 million people on 1,680 km² of built-up land. 108 urban areas in Africa have at least 1 million people or are a national capital; the table shows the largest 100.
| # | City | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cairo | 25.2 million |
| 2 | Kinshasa | 12.9 million |
| 3 | Lagos | 12.8 million |
| 4 | Luanda | 11.7 million |
| 5 | Dar es Salaam | 8.92 million |
| 6 | Johannesburg | 8.59 million |
| 7 | Addis Ababa | 7.28 million |
| 8 | Khartoum | 7.11 million |
| 9 | Alexandria | 6.93 million |
| 10 | Nairobi | 6.65 million |
| 11 | Abidjan | 6.45 million |
| 12 | Luxor region | 6.31 million |
| 13 | Accra | 5.89 million |
| 14 | Onitsha region | 5.79 million |
| 15 | Yaoundé | 5.48 million |
| 16 | Kampala | 5.18 million |
| 17 | Kano | 5.11 million |
| 18 | Kumasi | 4.92 million |
| 19 | Mogadishu | 4.80 million |
| 20 | Casablanca | 4.58 million |
| 21 | Douala | 4.46 million |
| 22 | Cape Town | 4.34 million |
| 23 | Antananarivo | 4.26 million |
| 24 | Ibadan | 4.04 million |
| 25 | Dakar | 3.97 million |
| 26 | Bamako | 3.96 million |
| 27 | Lusaka | 3.66 million |
| 28 | Ouagadougou | 3.62 million |
| 29 | Mbuji-Mayi | 3.60 million |
| 30 | Owerri region | 3.59 million |
| 31 | Maputo | 3.53 million |
| 32 | Algiers | 3.32 million |
| 33 | Durban | 3.27 million |
| 34 | Brazzaville | 3.19 million |
| 35 | Coyah | 2.99 million |
| 36 | Lubumbashi | 2.91 million |
| 37 | Tunis | 2.79 million |
| 38 | Cotonou | 2.65 million |
| 39 | Port Harcourt | 2.62 million |
| 40 | Lomé | 2.50 million |
| 41 | Freetown | 2.15 million |
| 42 | Rabat | 2.09 million |
| 43 | Harare | 2.08 million |
| 44 | Monrovia | 2.05 million |
| 45 | Kaduna | 1.94 million |
| 46 | Benin City | 1.91 million |
| 47 | N'Djamena | 1.91 million |
| 48 | Banha region | 1.88 million |
| 49 | Beni region | 1.87 million |
| 50 | Pretoria | 1.83 million |
| 51 | Mansoura | 1.71 million |
| 52 | Nouakchott | 1.63 million |
| 53 | Kigali | 1.62 million |
| 54 | Mombasa | 1.62 million |
| 55 | Warri region | 1.62 million |
| 56 | Uyo region | 1.61 million |
| 57 | Niamey | 1.60 million |
| 58 | Kananga | 1.54 million |
| 59 | Hargeisa | 1.50 million |
| 60 | Aba | 1.47 million |
| 61 | Soshanguve | 1.46 million |
| 62 | Fez | 1.43 million |
| 63 | Bujumbura | 1.40 million |
| 64 | Ilorin | 1.36 million |
| 65 | Lubango | 1.33 million |
| 66 | Abuja | 1.32 million |
| 67 | Serrekunda | 1.31 million |
| 68 | Tangier | 1.30 million |
| 69 | Bobo-Dioulasso | 1.30 million |
| 70 | Zagazig region | 1.30 million |
| 71 | Maiduguri | 1.29 million |
| 72 | Aboh region | 1.28 million |
| 73 | Bangui | 1.27 million |
| 74 | Oran | 1.26 million |
| 75 | Sekondi-Takoradi | 1.26 million |
| 76 | Tripoli | 1.25 million |
| 77 | Cabinda | 1.22 million |
| 78 | Touba | 1.17 million |
| 79 | Marrakesh | 1.15 million |
| 80 | Asyut | 1.15 million |
| 81 | Sohag region | 1.10 million |
| 82 | El Mahalla El Kubra | 1.10 million |
| 83 | Enugu | 1.09 million |
| 84 | Tshikapa | 1.07 million |
| 85 | Malanje | 1.05 million |
| 86 | Nyala | 1.04 million |
| 87 | Okene | 1.04 million |
| 88 | Nampula | 1.03 million |
| 89 | Zanzibar City | 1.03 million |
| 90 | Lilongwe | 1.02 million |
| 91 | Libreville | 917,056 |
| 92 | Porto-Novo | 815,040 |
| 93 | Djibouti | 735,132 |
| 94 | Malabo | 729,478 |
| 95 | Bissau | 674,444 |
| 96 | Port Louis | 557,431 |
| 97 | Windhoek | 417,842 |
| 98 | Gaborone | 298,993 |
| 99 | Maseru | 296,516 |
| 100 | Juba | 296,087 |
Urban area = contiguous built-up land and the people living in it in 2025, drawn the same way for every city regardless of administrative boundaries. Source: GHSL Urban Centre Database R2024A, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (CC BY 4.0); some names adjusted to the city names people use, and country attribution follows the dataset.
“Region” marks urban areas that join many towns and dense rural settlement into one built-up area; they are named after their main town.
Official city limits are drawn differently in every country: some take in farmland and mountains, others stop at the historic core. Ranking cities by those limits mostly ranks boundary decisions. These lists use the built-up area instead, so a city's figure includes its suburbs wherever they are continuous with it, and nothing beyond.
For figures inside official limits, see the city-limits rankings; for the background, read how to compare city sizes honestly. Click any city to see it on a map at the same scale as another.