Gauteng · South Africa
Soweto population
1,695,047people · latest figure
Soweto has a population of 1,695,047, making it the 5th largest place we list in South Africa. It is in Gauteng.
Soweto holds 2.6% of South Africa's 65,453,084 people. Johannesburg, the largest place we list there, is 5.6 times its size. The World Gazetteer published 1,695,047 for Soweto in 2005 and GeoNames still carries that same figure, so there is no measured change to report.
The 2005 figure comes from the World Gazetteer archive restored on this site. Why figures differ.
Nearby in size
| Place | Region | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Cape Town | Western Cape | 4,772,846 |
| Durban | KwaZulu-Natal | 3,338,026 |
| Pretoria | Gauteng | 2,112,693 |
| Gqeberha | Eastern Cape | 1,050,078 |
| Soshanguve | Gauteng | 872,309 |
| Pietermaritzburg | KwaZulu-Natal | 839,327 |
Figures are the latest available in GeoNames (CC BY 4.0), which draws on national censuses of varying dates — treat them as recent, not same-year. Country totals are UN World Population Prospects 2024 (medium variant) where the UN lists the country separately; the handful it reports under a parent state keep a GeoNames figure and are marked as such. Sources & method.