Luanda set to overtake Lagos as Africa's largest city, World Bank study finds
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Sub-Saharan Africa is on course to host five megacities by 2050, with Angola's Luanda projected to pass Lagos as the continent's biggest metropolis, according to a new World Bank study.
Sub-Saharan Africa is set to host five megacities by 2050, and Lagos is likely to be overtaken by Angola's Luanda as the continent's biggest metropolis, according to a new World Bank study.
The study projects that Bamako's population will grow by 80 per cent over the next 25 years to 7.6 million, while Mogadishu's will rise by 64 per cent, moving both cities into the top 15. Kinshasa, Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa are each expected to house more than 10 million people — the generally accepted definition of a megacity — and Luanda's population may top 20 million.
The World Bank forecasts that the number of people living in sub-Saharan African cities will increase by 320 million to 823 million by 2050, rising to 1.7 billion when peri-urban areas and towns are included.
Cities in countries that urbanised earlier slip down the rankings. Johannesburg's population will climb to 8.9 million from 7.1 million, but it will fall from fifth to eighth largest in the region, while Cape Town, currently 15th with about 4.5 million people, will no longer be ranked among the largest.
The Washington-based lender and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre assessed the cities' current sizes using a broader definition than municipal boundaries to capture the extent of urban sprawl. South Africa's 2022 census put Johannesburg's population at 4.8 million, a figure that excluded areas such as Ekurhuleni, a separate municipality that is home to the main airport.
The projections point to a sharp increase in demand for land, housing and urban infrastructure across fast-growing African cities over the next two decades.