Nigeria has the largest population in Africa. As of 2025, the country counted over 237.5 million individuals, whereas Ethiopia, which ranked second, has around 135.5 million inhabitants. Egypt registered the largest population in North Africa, reaching nearly 118.4 million people. In terms of inhabitants per square kilometer, Nigeria only ranked seventh, while Mauritius had the highest population density on the whole African continent in 2023. The fastest-growing world region Africa is the second most populous continent in the world, after Asia. Nevertheless, Africa records the highest growth rate worldwide, with figures rising by over two percent every year. In some countries, such as Chad, South Sudan, Somalia, and the Central African Republic, the population increase peaks at over 3.4 percent. With so many births, Africa is also the youngest continent in the world. However, this coincides with a low life expectancy. African cities on the rise The last decades have seen high urbanization rates in Asia, mainly in China and India. African cities are also growing at large rates. Indeed, the continent has three megacities and is expected to add four more by 2050. Furthermore, Africa's fastest-growing cities are forecast to be Bujumbura, in Burundi, and Zinder, Nigeria, by 2035.

The population in Africa is expected to grow by ** percent by 2050. Among the countries forecast to be the most populated in the continent, Nigeria leads, with an estimated population of over *** million people. Currently, the nation has already the largest number of inhabitants in Africa. The highest population growth is expected to be measured in Angola, by ***** percent between 2019 and 2050. The number of inhabitants in the country is forecast to jump from **** million to **** million in the mentioned period.

This dataset provides values for POPULATION reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

The Africa Population Distribution Database provides decadal population density data for African administrative units for the period 1960-1990. The databsae was prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme / Global Resource Information Database (UNEP/GRID) project as part of an ongoing effort to improve global, spatially referenced demographic data holdings. The database is useful for a variety of applications including strategic-level agricultural research and applications in the analysis of the human dimensions of global change.

This documentation describes the third version of a database of administrative units and associated population density data for Africa. The first version was compiled for UNEP's Global Desertification Atlas (UNEP, 1997; Deichmann and Eklundh, 1991), while the second version represented an update and expansion of this first product (Deichmann, 1994; WRI, 1995). The current work is also related to National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) activities to produce a global database of subnational population estimates (Tobler et al., 1995), and an improved database for the Asian continent (Deichmann, 1996). The new version for Africa provides considerably more detail: more than 4700 administrative units, compared to about 800 in the first and 2200 in the second version. In addition, for each of these units a population estimate was compiled for 1960, 70, 80 and 90 which provides an indication of past population dynamics in Africa. Forthcoming are population count data files as download options.

African population density data were compiled from a large number of heterogeneous sources, including official government censuses and estimates/projections derived from yearbooks, gazetteers, area handbooks, and other country studies. The political boundaries template (PONET) of the Digital Chart of the World (DCW) was used delineate national boundaries and coastlines for African countries.

For more information on African population density and administrative boundary data sets, see metadata files at [http://na.unep.net/datasets/datalist.php3] which provide information on file identification, format, spatial data organization, distribution, and metadata reference.

References:

Deichmann, U. 1994. A medium resolution population database for Africa, Database documentation and digital database, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Deichmann, U. and L. Eklundh. 1991. Global digital datasets for land degradation studies: A GIS approach, GRID Case Study Series No. 4, Global Resource Information Database, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.

UNEP. 1997. World Atlas of Desertification, 2nd Ed., United Nations Environment Programme, Edward Arnold Publishers, London.

WRI. 1995. Africa data sampler, Digital database and documentation, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.

The northernmost region of the African continent was home to approximately 208 million individuals in 2023. Egypt, the third most populous country in Africa, had roughly 50 percent of the region's population living within its borders, with over 105 million inhabitants. Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia followed with 46 million, 37 million, and 12 million citizens, respectively.

The population in Africa was forecast to expand annually by an average of **** percent between 2020 and 2025. Over 20 countries might grow above this rate, with Niger leading by an annual population change of *** percent in the mentioned period. Angola was expected to follow, with an average population growth of **** percent annually. Overall, Africa has recorded a faster population growth compared to other world regions. The continent's population almost doubled in the last 25 years.

All the African countries registered a positive population growth in 2023, except for Seychelles and Mauritius. Niger had the highest population growth rate at nearly *** percent compared to the previous year. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Mali, Somalia, and Angola followed, recording over ***** percent growth each. The African population has been increasing considerably in the last decades and is expected to nearly double by 2050. This is due to several factors, including the rising life expectancy and the high fertility rates registered on the continent.

Graph and download economic data for Population Growth for Developing Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SPPOPGROWSSA) from 1961 to 2024 about Sub-Saharan Africa, population, and rate.

This layer shows the countries of Africa. You can click on the map to get info on each country, including its name and flag, as well as links to detailed information in The World Factbook and UN Human Development Reports.The Africa Countries layer was created by joining country population data from The World Factbook to the World Countries (Generalized) layer, using ArcGIS Online analysis tools. The popup for the map uses Arcade expressions to reference other online resources based on the country code for the selected country.The Flags of countries are provided by reference to Flagpedia, which provides flags of countries of the world and the U.S. states for display and download.

The average for 2021 based on 47 countries was 119 people per square km. The highest value was in Mauritius: 634 people per square km and the lowest value was in Namibia: 3 people per square km. The indicator is available from 1961 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Dataset

This dataset was created by Nspaniol

Contents

Graph and download economic data for Population, Total for Developing Countries in Middle East and North Africa (SPPOPTOTLMNA) from 1960 to 2024 about North Africa, Middle East, and population.

Top five largest countries of Africa by land size are Algeria, Congo Democratic Republic of the, Sudan, Libya and Chad but the top five largest populations in Africa are in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania.

This map contains estimates for total population by country from 1950 to 2015. Symbology changes slightly when zoomed in to individual continents (1:50,000,000). Source: United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, File POP/1-1.Estimates are in thousands. Other fields in the Country Population Estimates layer include: Major Region (e.g. Africa), Minor Region (e.g. Eastern Africa), and UN Documentation Notes. The UN Documentation Notes field corresponds to the following notes:(1) Including Agalega, Rodrigues and Saint Brandon.(2) Including Zanzibar.(3) Including Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.(4) For statistical purposes, the data for China do not include Hong Kong and Macao, Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of China, and Taiwan Province of China.(5) As of 1 July 1997, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.(6) As of 20 December 1999, Macao became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.(7) The regions Southern Asia and Central Asia are combined into South-Central Asia.(8) Including Sabah and Sarawak.(9) Including Nagorno-Karabakh.(10) Refers to the whole country(11) Including Abkhazia and South Ossetia.(12) Including East Jerusalem.(13) Including Transnistria.(14) Including Crimea(15) Refers to Guernsey, and Jersey.(16) Including Åland Islands.(17) Including Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands.(18) Refers to the Vatican City State.(19) Including Kosovo.(20) Including Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla.(21) The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.(22) Refers to Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius.(23) Including Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin (French part).(24) Including Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Norfolk Island.(25) Including Pitcairn.

Africa's population is projected to grow significantly in the coming years. Estimates conducted in July 2020 show that Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent, would reach around *** million inhabitants by 2100. Compared to 2021, when the country counted *** million people, this would represent an impressive growth of around *** percent. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is estimated to be the second most populous nation on the African continent, reaching *** million individuals. According to the study, nine countries in Africa would exceed 100 million people by 2100.

Mauritius had the highest population density level in Africa as of 2023, with nearly *** inhabitants per square kilometer. The country has also one of the smallest territories on the continent, which contributes to the high density. As a matter of fact, the majority of African countries with the largest concentration of people per square kilometer have the smallest geographical area as well. The exception is Nigeria, which ranks among the largest territorial countries in Africa and is very densely populated at the same time. After all, Nigeria has also the largest population on the continent.

A flexible model to reconstruct education-specific fertility rates: Sub-saharan Africa case study

The fertility rates are consistent with the United Nation World Population Prospects (UN WPP) 2022 fertility rates.

The Bayesian model developed to reconstruct the fertility rates using Demographic and Health Surveys and the UN WPP is published in a working paper.

Abstract

The future world population growth and size will be largely determined by the pace of fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa. Correct estimates of education-specific fertility rates are crucial for projecting the future population. Yet, consistent cross-country comparable estimates of education-specific fertility for sub-Saharan African countries are still lacking. We propose a flexible Bayesian hierarchical model to reconstruct education-specific fertility rates by using the patchy Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data and the United Nations’ (UN) reliable estimates of total fertility rates (TFR). Our model produces estimates that match the UN TFR to different extents (in other words, estimates of varying levels of consistency with the UN). We present three model specifications: consistent but not identical with the UN, fully-consistent (nearly identical) with the UN, and consistent with the DHS. Further, we provide a full time series of education-specific TFR estimates covering five-year periods between 1980 and 2014 for 36 sub-Saharan African countries. The results show that the DHS-consistent estimates are usually higher than the UN-fully-consistent ones. The differences between the three model estimates vary substantially in size across countries, yielding 1980-2014 fertility trends that differ from each other mostly in level only but in some cases also in direction.

Funding

The data set are part of the BayesEdu Project at Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, OeAW, University of Vienna) funded from the “Innovation Fund Research, Science and Society” by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).

We provide education-specific total fertility rates (ESTFR) from three model specifications: (1) estimated TFR consistent but not identical with the TFR estimated by the UN (“Main model (UN-consistent)”; (2) estimated TFR fully consistent (nearly identical) with the TFR estimated by the UN ( “UN-fully -consistent”, and (3) estimated TFR consistent only with the TFR estimated by the DHS ( “DHS-consistent”).

For education- and age-specific fertility rates that are UN-fully consistent, please see https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8182960

Variables

Country: Country names

Education: Four education levels, No Education, Primary Education, Secondary Education and Higher Education.

Year: Five-year periods between 1980 and 2015.

ESTFR: Median education-specific total fertility rate estimate

sd: Standard deviation

Upp50: 50% Upper Credible Interval

Lwr50: 50% Lower Credible Interval

Upp80: 80% Upper Credible Interval

Lwr80: 80% Lower Credible Interval

Model: Three model specifications as explained above and in the working paper. DHS-consistent, Main model (UN-consistent) and UN-fully consistent.

List of countries:

Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote D'Ivoire, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

The average for 2023 based on 53 countries was 50.08 percent. The highest value was in Zimbabwe: 52.38 percent and the lowest value was in the Seychelles: 44.82 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The average for 2023 based on 53 countries was 48.72 percent. The highest value was in Gabon: 91.03 percent and the lowest value was in Burundi: 14.78 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

license: apache-2.0 tags: - africa - sustainable-development-goals - world-health-organization - development

  Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate





  Dataset Description

This dataset provides country-level data for the indicator "11.3.1 Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate" across African nations, sourced from the World Health Organization's (WHO) data portal on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The data is presented in… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/electricsheepafrica/ratio-of-land-consumption-rate-to-population-growth-rate-for-african-countries.