Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Mogadishu
- Region
- Africa, Eastern Africa
- Population
- 19,654,739 (2025)
- Area
- 637,657 km²
- Currency
- Somali shilling (SOS)
- Languages
- Somali, Arabic, Italian, English
- Calling code
- +252
- Internet domain
- .so
- ISO codes
- SO, SOM, 706
- Time zone
- UTC+3:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- @@ ##### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Somalia covers about 637,657 square kilometres. By area it ranks 44th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than South Sudan and a little larger than Central African Republic. It shares a land border with 3 neighbours: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya. Its centre lies at about 10° north, 49° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 19.7 million people live in Somalia (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 67th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.24 percent of the world's people. On average there are 31 people to each square kilometre. About 55 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 59 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Somali, Arabic, Italian, English.
Money and economy
The currency is the Somali shilling (code SOS, symbol Sh). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 13 billion (2025), which is about US$ 661 for each person (2025).
Time
Somalia uses one time zone, UTC+3:00 (Africa/Mogadishu). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Mogadishu | 2,587,183 |
| Borama | 597,842 |
| Hargeysa | 477,876 |
| Berbera | 242,344 |
| Kismayo | 234,852 |
| Marka | 230,100 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Eastern Africa
British Indian Ocean Territory, Burundi, Comoros, Eritrea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mayotte. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.