As of April 2025, South Africa's GDP was estimated at over 410 billion U.S. dollars, the highest in Africa. Egypt followed, with a GDP worth around 347 billion U.S. dollars, and ranked as the second-highest on the continent. Algeria ranked third, with nearly 269 billion U.S. dollars. These African economies are among some of the fastest-growing economies worldwide. Dependency on oil For some African countries, the oil industry represents an enormous source of income. In Nigeria, oil generates over five percent of the country’s GDP in the third quarter of 2023. However, economies such as the Libyan, Algerian, or Angolan are even much more dependent on the oil sector. In Libya, for instance, oil rents account for over 40 percent of the GDP. Indeed, Libya is one of the economies most dependent on oil worldwide. Similarly, oil represents for some of Africa’s largest economies a substantial source of export value. The giants do not make the ranking Most of Africa’s largest economies do not appear in the leading ten African countries for GDP per capita. The GDP per capita is calculated by dividing a country’s GDP by its population. Therefore, a populated country with a low total GDP will have a low GDP per capita, while a small rich nation has a high GDP per capita. For instance, South Africa has Africa’s highest GDP, but also counts the sixth-largest population, so wealth has to be divided into its big population. The GDP per capita also indicates how a country’s wealth reaches each of its citizens. In Africa, Seychelles has the greatest GDP per capita.

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

Seychelles had the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Africa as of 2024. The value amounted to 21,630 U.S. dollars. Mauritius followed with around 12,330 U.S. dollars, whereas Gabon registered 8,840 U.S. dollars. GDP per capita is calculated by dividing a country’s GDP by its population, meaning that some of the largest economies are not ranked within the leading ten. Impact of COVID-19 on North Africa’s GDP When looking at the GDP growth rate in Africa in 2024, Libya had the largest estimated growth in Northern Africa, a value of 7.8 percent compared to the previous year. Niger and Senegal were at the top of the list with rates of 10.4 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact on the economy was severe. The growth of the North African real GDP was estimated at minus 1.1 percent in 2020. However, estimations for 2022 looked much brighter, as it was set that the region would see a GDP growth of six percent, compared to four percent in 2021.
Contribution of Tourism Various countries in Africa are dependent on tourism, contributing to the economy. In 2023, travel and tourism were estimated to contribute 182.6 billion U.S. dollars, a clear increase from 96.5 in 2020 following COVID-19. As of 2024, South Africa, Mauritius, and Egypt led tourism in the continent according to the Travel & Tourism Development Index.

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

In 2025, South Africa had the highest health care index in Africa with a score of 63.8, followed by Kenya with 62 points. These scores, for both countries, are considered to be reasonably high. The health care index takes into account factors such as the overall quality of the health care system, health care professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, and cost.

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

In 2024, Niger's real GDP is estimated to grow by 10.4 percent compared to the previous year. During 2023, the GDP is estimated to have increased by only 1.4 percent, nevertheless a positive trend. The country's real GDP is forecast to continue growing but at a slower pace. Between 2025 and 2029, it is expected to grow annually by roughly six percent. Furthermore, the GDPs of Senegal, Libya, and Rwanda might increase by around 8.3 percent, 7.8 percent, and 6.9 percent during 2024, respectively. Niger: A dependence on agriculture A large portion of Niger's economy comes from agriculture. In 2022, agriculture accounted for almost 40 percent of the GDP. Niger is not the only country in Africa where agriculture plays a crucial role. For example, agriculture made up nearly 60 percent of Sierra Leone’s GDP in 2022. Such dependence could mean that any disruptions in the agricultural products market could have significant effects on the country's GDP. Sub-Saharan Africa's economy will be among the fastest-growing regions worldwide Three African countries have significantly larger economies, namely, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. As of 2022, these countries' GDP stood at nearly 477.4 billion, 475.2 billion, and 405.7 billion U.S. dollars. Furthermore, it is anticipated that Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP growth in 2026 will rank as the second-fastest growing economic region in the world after the ASEAN-5 countries, with a growth rate of approximately four percent. In contrast, economic areas such as the European Union are forecast to grow at only about 1.5 percent in the same year.

As of 2023, the GDP of Africa was estimated at roughly 3.1 trillion U.S. dollars. This was the highest value since 2010 when the continent's GDP amounted to approximately 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars. The GDP value in Africa generally followed an upward trend in recent years and was estimated to exceed 4.2 trillion U.S. dollars by 2027.

Leading the charge: the three leading African economies

Among the African countries, in 2021, Nigeria had the highest GDP with approximately 442 billion U.S. dollars. South Africa and Egypt followed. These three countries have the largest economies for various reasons. The most notable factors are their population size, natural resources, and level of economic development. Furthermore, Africa was projected to have a real GDP growth rate of 3.9 percent in 2023. Libya was the economy experiencing the highest growth rate in that year.

The Sub-Saharan African economy on the rise

A global comparison showed that Sub-Saharan Africa had the smallest GDP among all world regions in 2021, amounting to 1.87 trillion U.S. dollars. A closer look revealed that Sub-Saharan Africa had a GDP per capita of 1,626.3 U.S. dollars in 2021, again the lowest worldwide. However, the region's economy was forecast to experience continued growth in the following years, with the real GDP increasing by 3.7 percent in 2023.

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.

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

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

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.

South Africa's GDP amounted to just over 418 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, the highest in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe ranked second, with a GDP worth around 37 billion U.S. dollars. Lesotho, on the other hand, ranked the lowest with a GDP of over 2.4 billion U.S. dollars.

This dataset contains data provided alongside the paper "An all-Africa dataset of energy model “supply regions” for solar PV and wind power" by Sterl et al. (2022).

It concerns a novel representative subset of attractive sites for solar PV and onshore wind power for the entire African continent. We refer to these sites as “Model Supply Regions” (MSRs). This MSR dataset was created from an in-depth analysis of various existing datasets on resource potential, grid infrastructure, land use, topography and others (see Methods), and achieves hourly temporal resolution and kilometre-scale spatial resolution. This dataset fills an important research need by closing the gap between comprehensive datasets on African VRE potential (such as the Global Solar Atlas and Global Wind Atlas) on the one hand, and the input needed to run cost-optimisation models on the other. It also allows a detailed analysis of the trade-offs involved in exploiting excellent, but far-from-grid resources as compared to mediocre but more accessible resources, which is a crucial component of power systems planning to be elaborated for many African countries.

Five separate datasets are included:

Folder (1) provides shapefiles of each country's overall feasible area for developing solar and wind power projects, under the restrictions/criteria mentioned above and described in Sterl et al. (2022).

Folder (2) provides the best 5% ("best" measured by expected LCOE, from lowest to highest, including grid and road extension costs; 5% measured in terms of coverage of a country's area) of each country's solar and wind development potential, including hourly time series for model input.

Folder (3) provides the corresponding shapefiles.

Folder (4) provides simplified/aggregated results in terms of MSR clusters (see Sterl et al. 2022 for details), alongside hourly time series based on the meteorological year 2018. The amount of clusters was chosen to be 2, 5 or 10 depending on country size.

Folder (5) provides PDF-file maps at the country level, showing resource strength and clustering outcomes by MSR (post-screening).

Explanations of the headers in any spreadsheet files are provided in the Supplementary Information of Sterl et al. (2022).

Countries/territories included in the dataset:

Algeria
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo Republic
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Eswatini
Ethiopia
Gabon
The Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guiné-Bissau
Côte d'Ivoire
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Morocco
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Sudan
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda
Tanzania
Zambia
Zimbabwe

References

Sterl, S., Hussain, B., Miketa, A. et al. An all-Africa dataset of energy model “supply regions” for solar photovoltaic and wind power. Sci Data 9, 664 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01786-5

See also

Sterl, S. (2024). Solar PV and wind power Model Supply Region (MSR) dataset as energy model input for countries in Central and South America (1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10650822

The average for 2017 based on 4 countries was 5 kidnappings per 100,000 people. The highest value was in South Africa: 9.6 kidnappings per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Morocco: 2.1 kidnappings per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 2003 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

As of 2024, South Africa was the country with the highest number of people living with HIV in Africa. At that time, around 7.8 million people in South Africa were HIV positive. In Mozambique, the country with the second-highest number of HIV-positive people in Africa, around 2.5 million people were living with HIV. Which country in Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV? Although South Africa has the highest total number of people living with HIV in Africa, it does not have the highest prevalence of HIV on the continent. Eswatini currently has the highest prevalence of HIV in Africa and worldwide, with almost 26 percent of the population living with HIV. South Africa has the third-highest prevalence, with around 18 percent of the population HIV positive. Eswatini also has the highest rate of new HIV infections per 1,000 population worldwide, followed by South Africa and Mozambique. However, South Africa had the highest total number of new HIV infections in 2024, with around 170,000 people newly infected with HIV that year. Deaths from HIV in Africa Thanks to advances in treatment and awareness, HIV/AIDS no longer contributes to a significant amount of death in many countries. However, the disease is still the eighth leading cause of death in Africa, accounting for around 4.6 percent of all deaths. In 2024, South Africa and Mozambique were the countries with the highest number of AIDS-related deaths worldwide, with 53,000 and 44,000 such deaths, respectively. Although not every country in the leading 25 for AIDS-related deaths is found in Africa, African countries account for the majority of countries on the list. Fortunately, HIV treatment has become more accessible in Africa over the years, and now up to 94 percent of people living with HIV in Eswatini are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). Access to ART does vary from country to country, however, with around 81 percent of people who are HIV positive in South Africa receiving ART and only 34 percent in the Congo.

South Africa's total Imports in 2024 were valued at US$101.24 Billion, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. South Africa's main import partners were: China, India and Germany. The top three import commodities were: Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products; Machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers and Electrical, electronic equipment. Total Exports were valued at US$110.11 Billion. In 2024, South Africa had a trade surplus of US$8.87 Billion.

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

As of October 2025, Nigeria had 107 million internet users—the highest number reported all over Africa. Meanwhile, Egypt ranked second with over 96 million users. The majority of web traffic in leading digital markets in Africa originated from mobile devices. This is due in part to the fact that mobile connections are much cheaper and do not require the infrastructure that is needed for traditional desktop PCs with fixed-line internet connections. Anticipating notable growth: Africa's internet user rise and projected milestones The projected trend for Africa indicates a consistent rise in internet users from 2024 to 2029. It will have a collective addition of 337.3 million users (equivalent to a growth of 51.79 percent). Following fifteen successive years of growth, the user count is anticipated to reach a record high of 1.1 billion by 2029. Furthermore, the online penetration rate on the continent was 43 percent, which was below the global average, measured at around 68 percent. Unveiling internet trends The region has witnessed a steady increase in internet users over the years. In January 2024, Southern Africa stood out as the African region with the most sizable internet penetration rate, reaching approximately 73.1 percent. The proportion of individuals accessing the internet in this part of Africa and Northern Africa surpassed the global average (66.2 percent). Moreover, Morocco boasted an impressive internet penetration of about 91 percent, securing its position as Africa's foremost country. Libya held the second position with a penetration rate of approximately 88 percent, followed closely by Seychelles at around 86.7 percent.

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