Population and urbanization

For the purposes of this report, the Northern African sub-region includes seven countries: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara. 1 The population of the sub-region increased from just under 200 million in 2010 (Table 2.1) to 202.7 million in 2011. Of these, 104.4 million (51.5 per cent) lived in areas classified as urban and 98.3 million (48.5 per cent) rural. As a result of the sub-region’s largely arid and desert conditions, its cities are quite unevenly spread with most urban settlements located along the southern Mediterranean coastal rim and in the Nile River Valley and Delta. More specifically, the Nile Valley and Delta concentrate 35.0 per cent of the sub-region’s urban dwellers, while Egypt’s 82.5 million inhabitants represent over 40 per cent of Northern Africa’s total population.

Related Subject(s): Human Settlements and Urban Issues