The total population in Nigeria was estimated at 232.7 million people in 2024, according to the latest census figures and projections from Trading Economics. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Nigeria Population - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

The total population of Nigeria was estimated at approximately 227.71 million people in 2024. Following a continuous upward trend, the total population has risen by around 154.29 million people since 1980. Between 2024 and 2030, the total population will rise by around 35.27 million people, continuing its consistent upward trajectory.This indicator describes the total population in the country at hand. This total population of the country consists of all persons falling within the scope of the census.

Total current population for Nigeria in 2025 is 234,573,603, a 2.37% increase from 2024.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Total population for Nigeria in 2024 was <strong>229,152,217</strong>, a <strong>0.56% increase</strong> from 2023.</li>
<li>Total population for Nigeria in 2023 was <strong>227,882,945</strong>, a <strong>2.12% increase</strong> from 2022.</li>
<li>Total population for Nigeria in 2022 was <strong>223,150,896</strong>, a <strong>2.11% increase</strong> from 2021.</li>
</ul>Total population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship. The values shown are midyear estimates.

As of July 2024, Nigeria's population was estimated at around 229.5 million. Between 1965 and 2024, the number of people living in Nigeria increased at an average rate of over two percent. In 2024, the population grew by 2.42 percent compared to the previous year. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. By extension, the African continent records the highest growth rate in the world. Africa's most populous country Nigeria was the most populous country in Africa as of 2023. As of 2022, Lagos held the distinction of being Nigeria's biggest urban center, a status it also retained as the largest city across all of sub-Saharan Africa. The city boasted an excess of 17.5 million residents. Notably, Lagos assumed the pivotal roles of the nation's primary financial hub, cultural epicenter, and educational nucleus. Furthermore, Lagos was one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. Nigeria's youthful population In Nigeria, a significant 50 percent of the populace is under the age of 19. The most prominent age bracket is constituted by those up to four years old: comprising 8.3 percent of men and eight percent of women as of 2021. Nigeria boasts one of the world's most youthful populations. On a broader scale, both within Africa and internationally, Niger maintains the lowest median age record. Nigeria secures the 20th position in global rankings. Furthermore, the life expectancy in Nigeria is an average of 62 years old. However, this is different between men and women. The main causes of death have been neonatal disorders, malaria, and diarrheal diseases.

Population in urban agglomerations of more than 1 million (% of total population) in Nigeria was reported at 17.28 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Nigeria - Population in urban agglomerations of more than 1 million - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

Population in urban agglomerations of more than 1 million in Nigeria was reported at 40206132 in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Nigeria - Population in urban agglomerations of more than 1 million - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

Nigeria NG: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million: as % of Total Population data was reported at 16.376 % in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 16.245 % for 2016. Nigeria NG: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million: as % of Total Population data is updated yearly, averaging 12.267 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 16.376 % in 2017 and a record low of 4.753 % in 1960. Nigeria NG: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million: as % of Total Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Nigeria – Table NG.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in urban agglomerations of more than one million is the percentage of a country's population living in metropolitan areas that in 2018 had a population of more than one million people.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; Weighted average;

This statistic shows the total population of Nigeria from 2013 to 2023 by gender. In 2023, Nigeria's female population amounted to approximately 112.68 million, while the male population amounted to approximately 115.21 million inhabitants.

Key information about Nigeria population

• The Nigeria population reached 211.5 million people in Dec 2021, compared with the previously reported figure of 206.3 million people in Dec 2020
• The data reached an all-time high of 211.5 million people in Dec 2021 and a record low of 37.9 million people in Dec 1950

Nigeria NG: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million data was reported at 31,259,002.000 Person in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 30,213,092.000 Person for 2016. Nigeria NG: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million data is updated yearly, averaging 11,244,076.500 Person from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 31,259,002.000 Person in 2017 and a record low of 2,145,512.000 Person in 1960. Nigeria NG: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Nigeria – Table NG.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in urban agglomerations of more than one million is the country's population living in metropolitan areas that in 2018 had a population of more than one million people.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; ;

In 2022, Nigeria's population was estimated at around *** million individuals. Demographic projections show that the Nigerian population might experience a constant increase in the next decades. By 2050, it is forecast that the population will grow to over *** million people compared to 2022.

Forecast: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million in Nigeria 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Nigeria's population structure reveals a youthful demographic, with those aged **** years comprising the largest age group compared to the total of those between the ages of 30 and 84 years. The majority of the young population are men. This demographic trend has significant implications for Nigeria's future, particularly in terms of economic development and social services. It has the potential to offer a large future workforce that could drive economic growth if it is adequately educated and employed. However, without sufficient investment in health, education, and job creation, this youth bulge could strain public resources and fuel unemployment and social unrest. Poverty challenges amid population growth Despite Nigeria's large youth population, the country faces substantial poverty challenges. This is largely due to its youth unemployment rate, which goes contrary to the expectation that the country’s large labor force would contribute to employment and the economic development of the nation. In 2022, an estimated **** million Nigerians lived in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than **** U.S. dollars a day. This number is expected to rise in the coming years, indicating a growing disparity between population growth and economic opportunities. The situation is particularly dire in rural areas, where **** million people live in extreme poverty compared to *** million in urban centers. Linguistic and ethnic diversity Nigeria's population is characterized by significant linguistic and ethnic diversity. Hausa is the most commonly spoken language at home, used by ** percent of the population, followed by Yoruba at ** percent and Igbo at ** percent. This linguistic variety reflects Nigeria's complex ethnic composition, with major groups including Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Fulani. English, the country's official language, serves as the primary language of instruction in schools, promoting literacy across diverse communities.

As shown in this statistic, the total population of Nigeria stands at approximately 233.34 million people in 2025.Continuous rise between 1980 and 2025Between 1980 and 2025 a total increase by approximately 159.92 million people can be observed. This increase furthermore happened continuously.Continuous rise between 2025 and 2030The total population will lie at roughly 262.98 million people in 2030, according to forecasts. This indicates an overall increase by approximately 29.64 million people since 2025. This growth reflects a steady upward trend.This indicator describes the total population in the country at hand. This total population of the country consists of all persons falling within the scope of the census.

In 2022, roughly 15.4 million people lived in Lagos, Nigeria, making it the largest city in Africa. Lagos's population has been gradually increasing, with thousands of people flocking every year to the city, searching for job opportunities and a better life. By 2035, 24.4 million might be dwelling in the city.

As of 2023, the total population of Africa was over 1.48 billion. The number of inhabitants on the continent increased annually from 2000 onwards. In comparison, the total population was around 831 million in 2000. According to forecasts, Africa will experience impressive population growth in the coming years and would nearly reach the Asian population by 2100. Over 200 million people in Nigeria Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. In 2023, the country’s population exceeded 223 million people. Ethiopia followed with a population of around 127 million, while Egypt ranked third, accounting for approximately 113 million individuals. Other leading African countries in terms of population were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, South Africa, and Kenya. Additionally, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad recorded the highest population growth rate on the continent in 2023, with the number of residents rising by over 3.08 percent compared to the previous year. On the other hand, the populations of Tunisia and Eswatini registered a growth rate below 0.85 percent, while for Mauritius and Seychelles, it was negative. Drivers for population growth Several factors have driven Africa’s population growth. For instance, the annual number of births on the continent has risen constantly over the years, jumping from nearly 32 million in 2000 to almost 46 million in 2023. Moreover, despite the constant decline in the number of births per woman, the continent’s fertility rate has remained considerably above the global average. Each woman in Africa had an average of over four children throughout her reproductive years as of 2021, compared to a world rate of around two births per woman. At the same time, improved health and living conditions contributed to decreasing mortality rate and increasing life expectancy in recent years, driving population growth.

Historical chart and dataset showing Nigeria rural population by year from 1960 to 2023.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

• Household
• Individual

Universe

18 of the 37 states in Nigeria were selected using procedures described in the methodology report

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

A. Sampling Frame The sampling frame was the 2006 National Population Census. For administrative purposes, Nigeria has 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. These states are grouped into six geopolitical zones - the North Central, North East, North West, South East, South South and South West. The states in turn are divided into 776 Local Governments. The demographic and political characteristics of the states vary considerably. For example, the number of component local government areas in the states ranges from 8 in Bayelsa State (in the South South) to 44 in Kano State (in the North West). Likewise state populations vary widely from 1.41 million in the Abuja Federal Capital Territory to 9.38 million in Kano State. The National Bureau of Statistics splits the country further into 23, 070 enumeration areas (EAs). While the enumeration areas are equally distributed across the local government areas, with each local government area having 30 enumeration areas, the differences in the number of local government areas across states implies that there are also huge differences in the number of enumeration areas across states. Appendix table 1 summarizes the population according to the 2006 population census (in absolute and proportionate numbers), number of local government areas, and number of enumeration areas in each state .

Given the above, a stratified random sampling technique was thought to be needed to select areas according to population and the expected prevalence of migrants. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) provided a randomly selected set of enumeration areas and households spread across all states in the Federation from the 2006 sampling frame. Every state in Nigeria has three senatorial zones (often referred to as North, Central and South or East, Central and West). The NBS sample enumeration areas were distributed such that within each state, local government areas from each senatorial zones were included in the sample, with Local Governments in each state nearly evenly distributed between rural and urban areas. In all, a total of 3188 enumeration areas were selected. These enumeration areas were unevenly spread across States; some states in the North West (Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa), and a few in the South South (Akwa Ibom and Delta) had over 100 enumeration areas selected while others such as Imo and Abia in the South East, and Borno, Gombe and Taraba in the North East, had as few as 20 enumeration areas selected. This selection partially reflected the relative population distribution and number of Local Government Areas in the component states. Annex Table B shows details of the states and geopolitical regions, their shares in population of the country, the number of Local Government Areas and enumeration areas in each state and the number of enumeration areas given in the NBS list that formed the frame for the study.

B. The Sample for the Migration Survey

a. Sample Selection of States, Local Governments and Enumeration Areas Originally, the intention was to have proportionate allocation across all states, using the population of each state in the 2006 Census to select the number of households to be included in the sample. But it was later recognized that this would not yield enough migrant households, particularly those with international migrants, especially as the total number of households that could likely be covered in the sample to was limited to 2000. Consequently, a disproportionate sampling approach was adopted, with the aim of oversampling areas of the country with more migrants. According to Bilsborrow (2006), this approach becomes necessary because migrants are rare populations for which a distinct disproportionate sampling procedure is needed to ensure they are adequately captured. Given the relative rareness of households with out-migrants to international destinations within the 10 year reference period (selected by the World Bank for all countries) prior to the planned survey, sampling methods appropriate for sampling rare elements were desirable, specifically, stratified sampling with two-phase sampling at the last stage.

Establishing the strata would require that there be previous work, say from the most recent Census, to determine migration incidence among the states. However, the needed census data could not be obtained from either the National Bureau of Statistics or the National Population Commission. Therefore, the stratification procedure had to rely on available literature, particularly Hernandez-Coss and Bun (2007), Agu (2009) and a few other recent, smaller studies on migration and remittances in Nigeria. Information from this literature was supplemented by expert judgement about migration from team members who had worked on economic surveys in Nigeria in the past. Information from the literature and the expert assessment indicated that migration from households is considerably higher in the South than in the North. Following this understanding, the states were formed into two strata- those with high and those with low incidence of migration. In all, 18 States (16 in the South and 2 in the North) were put into the high migration incidence stratum while 19 states (18 in the North and 1 in the South) were classified l into the low migration incidence stratum (column C of Appendix Table 1).

The Aggregate population of the 18 states in the high migration incidence stratum was 67.04 million, spread across 10,850 Enumeration areas. Thus, the mean population of an EA in the high migration stratum was 6179. In turn, the aggregate population of the 19 states in the low migration incidence stratum was 72.95 million spread across 12,110 EAs yielding a mean EA population of 6024. These numbers were close enough to assume the mean population of EAs was essentially the same. To oversample states in the high stratum, it was decided to select twice as high a proportion of the states as in the low stratum. To further concentrate the sample and make field work more efficient in being oriented to EAs more likely to have international migrants, we decided to select randomly twice as many LGAs in each state in the high stratum states as in the low stratum states.

Thus, 12 states were randomly selected with probabilities of selection proportionate to the population size of each state (so states with larger populations were accordingly more likely to fall in the sample) from the high stratum states. Then two LGAs were randomly selected from each sample state and 2 EAs per sample LGA (one urban, one rural) to yield a total of 12 x 2 x 2 or 48 EAs in the high stratum states. For the low stratum, 6 states were randomly selected. From each of these, 1 LGA was randomly picked and 2 EAs were selected per sample LGA to give a total of 6 x 1 x 2 or 12 EAs in the low stratum. This yielded a total of 60 EAs for both strata. Given the expected range of 2000 households to be sampled, approximately 67 households were to be sampled from each local government area or 34 households from each enumeration area.

So far, the discussion has assumed two groups of households - migrant and non-migrant households. However, the study was interested in not just lumping all migrants together, but rather in classifying migrants according to whether their destination was within or outside the country. Migrant households were thus subdivided into those with former household members who were international migrants and those with former household members who were internal migrants. Three strata of households were therefore required, namely:

1. Households with an international migrant: at least one person who was a member of the household since Jan. 1, 2000 left to live in an international destination and has remained abroad;
2. Households with an internal migrant: at least one person who was a member of the household since Jan. 1, 2000 left to live elsewhere in Nigeria (outside the sample LGA) and has not returned to the LGA; and
3. Households with no migrant: No member of the household has left to live elsewhere either within or outside the country since Jan. 1, 2000.

The selection of states to be included in the sample from both strata was based on Probabilities of Selection Proportional to (Estimated) Size or PPES. The population in each stratum was cumulated and systematic sampling was performed, with an interval of 12.16 million for the low stratum (72.95 million divided by 6 States), and 5.59 million for the high stratum (67.04 million divided by 12 States). This yields approximately double the rate of sampling in the high migration stratum, as earlier explained. Using a random start between 0 and 12.16, the following states were sampled in the low stratum: Niger, Bauchi, Yobe, Kano, Katsina, and Zamfara. In the high stratum, states sampled were Abia, Ebonyi, Imo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Edo, Rivers, Lagos, Ondo, Osun and Oyo. Given its large population size, Lagos fell into the sample twice. The final sample, with LGAs and EAs moving from North to South (i.e. from the low to the high stratum states) is presented in Table 1 below.

The sample was concentrated in the South since that is where it was expected that more households have international migrants. It was expected that the survey would still also be reasonably representative of the whole country and of both internal migrant and non-migrant households through weighting the data. To this effect, field teams were asked to keep careful track at all stages of the numbers of people and households listed compared to the number in the

• The current US Census Bureau world population estimate in June 2019 shows that the current global population is 7,577,130,400 people on Earth, which far exceeds the world population of 7.2 billion in 2015. Our estimate based on UN data shows the world's population surpassing 7.7 billion.
• China is the most populous country in the world with a population exceeding 1.4 billion. It is one of just two countries with a population of more than 1 billion, with India being the second. As of 2018, India has a population of over 1.355 billion people, and its population growth is expected to continue through at least 2050. By the year 2030, India is expected to become the most populous country in the world. This is because India’s population will grow, while China is projected to see a loss in population.
• The following 11 countries that are the most populous in the world each have populations exceeding 100 million. These include the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Ethiopia, and the Philippines. Of these nations, all are expected to continue to grow except Russia and Japan, which will see their populations drop by 2030 before falling again significantly by 2050.
• Many other nations have populations of at least one million, while there are also countries that have just thousands. The smallest population in the world can be found in Vatican City, where only 801 people reside.
• In 2018, the world’s population growth rate was 1.12%. Every five years since the 1970s, the population growth rate has continued to fall. The world’s population is expected to continue to grow larger but at a much slower pace. By 2030, the population will exceed 8 billion. In 2040, this number will grow to more than 9 billion. In 2055, the number will rise to over 10 billion, and another billion people won’t be added until near the end of the century. The current annual population growth estimates from the United Nations are in the millions - estimating that over 80 million new lives are added yearly.
• This population growth will be significantly impacted by nine specific countries which are situated to contribute to the population growth more quickly than other nations. These nations include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America. Particularly of interest, India is on track to overtake China's position as the most populous country by 2030. Additionally, multiple nations within Africa are expected to double their populations before fertility rates begin to slow entirely.

Content

• In this Dataset, we have Historical Population data for every Country/Territory in the world by different parameters like Area Size of the Country/Territory, Name of the Continent, Name of the Capital, Density, Population Growth Rate, Ranking based on Population, World Population Percentage, etc. >Dataset Glossary (Column-Wise):
• Rank: Rank by Population.
• CCA3: 3 Digit Country/Territories Code.
• Country/Territories: Name of the Country/Territories.
• Capital: Name of the Capital.
• Continent: Name of the Continent.
• 2022 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 2022.
• 2020 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 2020.
• 2015 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 2015.
• 2010 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 2010.
• 2000 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 2000.
• 1990 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 1990.
• 1980 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 1980.
• 1970 Population: Population of the Country/Territories in the year 1970.
• Area (km²): Area size of the Country/Territories in square kilometers.
• Density (per km²): Population Density per square kilometer.
• Growth Rate: Population Growth Rate by Country/Territories.
• World Population Percentage: The population percentage by each Country/Territories.

Graph and download economic data for Population for Nigeria (POPTTLNGA148NRUG) from 1950 to 2019 about Nigeria and population.