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.

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 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.

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.

All the African countries registered a positive population growth in 2024, except for Mauritius. Chad had the highest population growth rate at nearly **** percent compared to the previous year. South Sudan, Somalia, the Central African Republic, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola followed, recording over ***** percent growth each. The African population has been increasing considerably in the last decades and is expected increase by almost *********** by 2050. This is due to several factors, including the rising life expectancy and the high fertility rates registered on the continent.

Africa has the youngest population in the world. Among the 35 countries with the lowest median age worldwide, only three fall outside the continent. In 2023, the median age in Niger was 15.1 years, the youngest country. This means that at this age point, half of the population was younger and half older. A young population reflects several demographic characteristics of a country. For instance, together with a high population growth, life expectancy in Western Africa is low: this reached 58 years for men and 60 for women in 2024. Overall, Africa has the lowest life expectancy in the world.

Africa’s population is still growing Africa’s population growth can be linked to a high fertility rate, along with a drop in death rates. Despite the fertility rate on the continent following a constant declining trend, it remains far higher compared to all other regions worldwide. It was forecast to reach 4.02 children per woman, compared to a worldwide average of 2.25 children per woman in 2024. Furthermore, the crude death rate in Africa overall dropped, only increasing slightly during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The largest populations on the continent Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are the most populous African countries. In 2025, people living in Nigeria amounted to over 237 million, while the number for the three other countries exceeded 100 million each. Of those, the Democratic Republic of Congo sustained the fourth-highest fertility rate in Africa in 2023. Nigeria and Ethiopia also had high rates, with 4.48 and 3.99 births per woman, respectively. Although such a high fertility rate is expected to slow down, it will still impact the population structure, growing younger nations.

The average for 2023 based on 53 countries was 51.28 percent. The highest value was in Burundi: 85.22 percent and the lowest value was in Gabon: 8.97 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

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 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.

Graph and download economic data for Population, Total for Developing Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SPPOPTOTLSSA) from 1960 to 2024 about Sub-Saharan Africa and population.

The average for 2021 based on 53 countries was 112 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.

The West Africa Coastal Vulnerability Mapping: Population Projections, 2030 and 2050 data set is based on an unreleased working version of the Gridded Population of the World (GPW), Version 4, year 2010 population count raster but at a coarser 5 arc-minute resolution. Bryan Jones of Baruch College produced country-level projections based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 4 (SSP4). SSP4 reflects a divided world where cities that have relatively high standards of living, are attractive to internal and international migrants. In low income countries, rapidly growing rural populations live on shrinking areas of arable land due to both high population pressure and expansion of large-scale mechanized farming by international agricultural firms. This pressure induces large migration flow to the cities, contributing to fast urbanization, although urban areas do not provide many opportUnities for the poor and there is a massive expansion of slums and squatter settlements. This scenario may not be the most likely for the West Africa region, but it has internal coherence and is at least plausible.

The average for 2024 based on 53 countries was 49.2 percent. The highest value was in Gabon: 91.31 percent and the lowest value was in Burundi: 15.16 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Graph and download economic data for Population Ages 15 to 64 for Developing Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SPPOP1564TOZSSSA) from 1960 to 2024 about Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 to 64 years, and population.

This dataset is about countries per year in Central African Republic. It has 64 rows. It features 4 columns: country, country full name, and rural population.

This dataset is about countries per year in Africa. It has 3,456 rows. It features 3 columns: country, and population.

The average for 2023 based on 48 countries was 163437 refugees. The highest value was in Uganda: 1577498 refugees and the lowest value was in Mauritius: 5 refugees. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

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.

Explore the varying population numbers in African countries with data from the United Nations. This interactive resource visualizes the distribution and trends of populations across Africa, providing a comprehensive assessment of demographic changes shaping Africa's landscape

This bar chart displays population (people) by country full name using the aggregation sum in Africa. The data is about countries.