Demographics of Ivory Coast

Demographics of Ivory Coast, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.

According to the 2019 revision of the World Population Prospects[1][2] the total population was 25,069,230 in 2018, compared to only 2 630 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 40.9%, 55.3% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 3.8% was 65 years or older .[3]

Structure of the population (DHS 2011-2012) (Males 23 630, Females 25 193 = 48 823) :

Population Growth: 1.88% (2016 est.)[4]

Registration of vital events is in Ivory Coast not complete. The Population Departement of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. [3]

Life expectancy

Period	Life expectancy in Years[7]
1950–1955	32.14
1955–1960	35.09
1960–1965	38.64
1965–1970	41.64
1970–1975	45.79
1975–1980	49.24
1980–1985	51.59
1985–1990	52.77
1990–1995	51.44
1995–2000	47.62
2000–2005	46.68
2005–2010	49.19
2010–2015	51.70

Ethnic groups

Ivory Coast has more than 60 ethnic groups, usually classified into five principal divisions: Akan (east and center, including Lagoon peoples of the southeast), Krou (southwest), Southern Mandé (west), Northern Mandé (northwest), Sénoufo/Lobi (north center and northeast). The Baoulés, in the Akan division, probably comprise the largest single subgroup with 15%-20% of the population. They are based in the central region around Bouaké and Yamoussoukro. The Bétés in the Krou division, the Sénoufos in the north, and the Malinkés in the northwest and the cities are the next largest groups, with 10%-15% of the national population. Most of the principal divisions have a significant presence in neighboring countries.

Of the more than 5 million non-Ivorian Africans living in Ivory Coast, one-third to one-half are from Burkina Faso; the rest are from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Liberia, and Mauritania. The non-African expatriate community includes roughly 50,000 French (this number may be inaccurate due to the evacuation of roughly 8,000 Frenchmen in November 2004) and possibly 40,000 Lebanese. The number of elementary school-aged children attending classes increased from 22% in 1960 to 67% in 1995.

French is the official language, while there are 60 living indigenous languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The Dioula dialect of Bambara is the most widely spoken one.[9] Other language groups include the Gur languages, the Senufo languages, the Kru languages (including the Bété languages, Dida, Nyabwa, Wè, and Western Krahn), and the Kwa languages (including Akan, Anyin, and Baoulé).

The economic development and relative prosperity of Ivory Coast fostered huge demographic shifts during the 20th century. "In 1922, an estimated 100,000 out of 1.6 million (or 6 percent) of people in Côte d'Ivoire were Muslims. By contrast, at independence (in 1960), their share of the population had increased rapidly, and Muslims were moving southward to the cocoa-producing areas and the southern cities. By 1998, [...], Muslims constituted a majority in the north of the country, and approximately 38.6 percent of the total population. This was a significantly larger population than the next largest religious group, Christians, who constituted approximately 29.1 percent of the total."[10] In earlier decades, this shift was mainly due to large-scale immigration from neighboring countries of the interior, that has been going on since colonial times and continued to be promoted during the Houphouet-Boigny era. Since the 1990s, the widening fertility gap between different religious groups has continued to tilt the demographic balance in favor of Muslims although immigration has become less important.[11]

The table below shows the number of people born in Ivory Coast who have migrated to OECD countries only (the table only includes communities consisting of at least 1,000 members).[12]

Country	Ivorian-born population	See also
France	63,441	Ivorians in France
United States	7,595	Ivorian Americans
Italy	7,242
United Kingdom	2,794	Ivorians in the United Kingdom
Canada	1,865
Belgium	1,363
Switzerland	1,100

Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2019.[13]

• One birth every 35 seconds
• One death every 2 minutes
• One net migrant every 90 minutes
• Net gain of one person every 50 seconds

The following demographic are from the CIA World Factbook[14] unless otherwise indicated.

Age structure

Population pyramid of Ivory Coast in 2016

0-14 years: 39.59% (male 5,213,630 /female 5,182,872)

15-24 years: 19.91% (male 2,613,772 /female 2,615,680)

25-54 years: 34.25% (male 4,577,394 /female 4,416,408)

55-64 years: 3.47% (male 460,048 /female 451,604)

65 years and over: 2.78% (male 325,510 /female 403,664) (2018 est.)

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 This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document: "2006 edition".