Outsize numbers

Population: 17.8 million inhabitants, making it the 13th most populous city in the world and the second or third largest city in Africa after Cairo, more or less on a par with Lagos. Kinshasa accounts for 20% of the total population of the DR Congo.

Interesting fact: Kinshasa is located on the south bank of the Congo River, opposite Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, making it the only place where two capitals directly face each other.

​​​​​​Administrative organisation: The city of Kinshasa has provincial status and counts 24 municipalities and 396 neighbourhoods.

Annual growth: +4.38%, or +746,200 people per year. By 2050, Kinshasa could be the third largest city in the world, behind Lagos and Mumbai, with 35 million inhabitants... And more than 80 million inhabitants by the end of the century.

Urban area: 9,965 km², equivalent to the size of Lebanon.

Youth: 60% of the population is under 20 years old.

Density: varies greatly from one municipality to another. Gombe, the ‘most upmarket’ municipality, has 3,150 inhabitants per km². Density can reach over 40,000 inhabitants per km², and even 50,000 in Matete or Bumbu. (Tokyo has 13,000 inhabitants per km², and Cairo has an average of nearly 40,000).

Informal neighbourhoods: 75% of the city's inhabitants live in substandard housing. Less than 30% of Kinois have access to a source of drinking water. Suspicion about water quality is the reason why a bottled water market is growing and filtration systems are being installed in wealthy homes. Without running water, entire neighbourhoods use makeshift solutions.

Traffic: The city's traffic jams are nightmarish, with serious repercussions for the economy, public health and the environment. According to the Congo Indépendant website, there are over 8 million vehicles on the road, including cars, motorcycles, trucks and rickshaws. In contrast, there are only 3,600 km of roads, 700 km of which are paved but in poor condition, and 2,900 km are dirt roads that are ‘sandy and dusty’.

Standard of living: Kinshasa is the poor capital of a poor country. The GDP of the DR Congo is estimated at around $600 per year per capita. That of Kinshasa is estimated at less than $300 per year per capita. It is the heart of the national economy, but detailed economic data by region or city in the DRC is very limited. There are no official statistics on Kinshasa's specific contribution to the national gross domestic product (GDP).