Africa’s 15 largest cities have a combined population larger than that of Japan. 

The population of Africa’s largest cities, compiled by World Population Review via Statista, shows just how concentrated urban Africa has become, with three cities alone accounting for nearly 44% of that total. 

TL;DR

• Africa’s 15 largest cities are home to about 132 million people, more than the entire population of Japan.
• Only three cities, Cairo, Kinshasa, and Lagos, pass 17 million; every city after that falls off sharply.
• Nairobi has the reputation as East Africa’s leading city, but Dar es Salaam actually has nearly 2.8 million more people.

Africa’s biggest cities, taken together, hold more people than an entire country twice their number. 

The 15 most populous cities on the continent have a combined population of roughly 132 million.

That’s more than the roughly 123 million people living in Japan, the world’s 12th most populous nation.

ALSO READ: Africa’s Population On Track to Hit 2.5 billion By 2050

Three Cities, Then a Cliff

At the top of the list sits Cairo, Egypt, with about 23.1 million people, the only African city that stands alone in its own class. 

Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo follows, with roughly 17.8 million, while Lagos, Nigeria, is close behind at about 17.2 million, a gap of under 4%. 

Then the numbers fall hard. Luanda, Angola, comes in fourth at about 10 million, a drop of nearly 42% from Lagos, the steepest fall between any two ranked cities in the entire table.

A stretch in the middle of the list is nearly a four-way tie. Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Alexandria and Nairobi are separated by fewer than 300,000 people combined.

Nairobi’s Reputation Doesn’t Match the Numbers

Some of the more surprising entries sit further down the list. Nairobi, Kenya, often described as East Africa’s leading business and technology hub, ranks 11th, with a population of about 5.8 million.

 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, ranks 5th with 8.6 million residents, nearly 2.8 million more than Nairobi.

The city with the stronger economic reputation isn’t the one with the larger population.

South Africa tells a similar story. Despite being Africa’s most industrialized economy, its largest city, Johannesburg, only ranks 7th on the list with about 6.4 million people, and Cape Town trails further behind in 12th place with about 5.1 million.

One City Usually Carries the Weight 

A few countries list two cities rather than one. 

Nigeria has both Lagos and Kano, though Lagos is nearly four times larger. Egypt places Cairo and Alexandria, with Cairo almost four times Alexandria’s size. 

That kind of gap shows how much of each country’s urban population is concentrated in a single dominant city rather than spread across several.

One figure on the list deserves a caveat. 

Khartoum, Sudan, ranks 6th with about 6.8 million people, but Sudan has been in the grip of civil war and mass displacement since April 2023. 

A population count from mid-2025 may already understate how much that number has shifted since then.

Rapid urban migration across the continent means these rankings are unlikely to stay fixed for long, and infrastructure planners in fast-growing cities like Kinshasa and Luanda are already racing to keep pace. 

ELI5

Fifteen African cities have more people living in them than the entire country of Japan does. 

Cairo, Kinshasa, and Lagos are the three biggest, way ahead of everyone else. After those three, city sizes drop fast. 

Some cities you’d expect to be huge, like Nairobi, are actually smaller than less famous ones, like Dar es Salaam.

Source:

Statista