Okay folks, today just got weirdly interesting. Wanted to know which cities in Africa were truly the biggest – population-wise, you know? Just popped into my head. So, grabbed my laptop during my coffee break and figured, “How hard could it be? Google it, done.”
Boy, was I wrong.
First, I just typed “largest cities africa population” into the search bar. Easy peasy. Got a list, top 20 maybe? Cairo, Lagos, Kinshasa… names I kinda expected. But something felt off. Some sites listed Lagos with one number, another site had a completely different, much bigger number next to it. Like, millions apart. Head scratching commenced.
Poked around a few more popular stats sites. Same deal. Lagos listed as 15 million here, 24 million there! Kinshasa showing as 11 million on one, nearly 17 million on another. I started muttering, “How is this even possible? What are we counting?”
Realized it was chaos. Needed a different approach. Decided to hit up the sources these sites should be pulling from, or at least try. Searched for “UN World Urbanization Prospects” – that sounded official. Found their latest report, the 2024 revision thing. Heavy document. Dug through tables. Felt like finding a needle in a haystack! Finally found their estimates for urban agglomerations – basically the city plus its massive sprawl. Okay, this seemed more consistent.
Here’s what they had:
- Lagos, Nigeria: Lead the pack, huge gap too. Their number? Over 20 million.
- Cairo, Egypt: Close contender, also pushing way over 20 million.
- Kinshasa, DRC: Boom! Much bigger than some lists said. Over 15 million.
- Luanda, Angola: Surprised me honestly. Bigger than expected.
- Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Shooting up the rankings fast.
But then… I remembered some sites quoted national census figures. So I double-checked national stats offices (where I could find them). Man, even harder to navigate. Found Nigeria’s NBS report. Their latest census had different definitions, counted Lagos State differently. Big number, but not exactly the UN’s urban sprawl number. Saw the same for others. Egypt had Cairo at X, UN had it at Y.
Ended up opening a fresh spreadsheet. Made four columns:
- City Name
- UN Urban Agglomeration Estimate (2024 Revision)
- National Census Figure (Most Recent Source I Found)
- Notes/Wild Variations Noticed Online
Took ages copying and pasting those UN figures, then hunting national stats. Kept jumping between browser tabs and the spreadsheet. Typed furiously. Coffee got cold. Had to filter out the most insane estimates just to make sense of it.
Finally looked at my messy spreadsheet. Clear trend: North and West Africa dominated the absolute top spots. Lagos and Cairo way out in front. Kinshasa and Luanda massive in Central/Southern Africa. East Africa saw Dar es Salaam and Nairobi powering up. The gap between the top two and the rest was huge.
The biggest headache? The wildly different definitions. That explained the chaos online. Is it the official city limits? The core urban area? The giant metropolis with the slums stretching for miles? The UN figure is the most comparable globally, even if it feels a bit abstract.
Final takeaway? Getting a “simple” ranking of Africa’s biggest cities is like trying to grab smoke. You need to pin down what exactly you’re counting. The UN Urban Agglomeration figures seem the most reliable standard for comparing across countries, even if national figures are vital for local planning. The numbers are staggeringly huge and growing insanely fast. Makes my head spin just thinking about it.
Anyway, saved my messy spreadsheet. Learned my lesson: simple questions sometimes lead down deep rabbit holes! Hope this saves someone else an hour of frustration.
