Urbanisation & Cities

Urban Transitions in Africa

How fast are African countries urbanising? How concentrated are people in mega-cities, capital cities and informal settlements? This dashboard connects urbanisation, slums, mega-cities and rural employment.

Cities at the Heart of the African Transition

Most of Africa’s future energy demand, infrastructure and emissions will be shaped in cities. Understanding where people live – in villages, towns, cities, mega-cities and informal settlements – is essential to designing just and resilient climate strategies.

This dashboard combines multiple UN and World Bank datasets to track: urbanisation levels, the growth of large cities, the prevalence of slums, and how fast countries are moving away from agricultural employment as they urbanise.

Data Highlights

Core indicator: Urban population (% of total), complemented by slums prevalence, largest city dominance, mega-city population and employment in agriculture.

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Countries
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Latest Urbanisation Data
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Median Urban Share

Use the tabs below to explore where people live, where slums are most prevalent, how dominant the largest cities are, and how urbanisation and rural employment interact across Africa.

Loading urbanisation and city datasets...
Filtering African countries and merging indicators...
Select Country
Urban population (% of total) --% Year: --
City & Slum Profile
Population in slums (% of urban) --%
Population in largest city (% of urban) --%
Population in urban agglomerations >1M (% of total) --%
DATASET CURATED, VERIFIED & DESIGNED BY PaneoTech FOR CLIMATE WATCH AFRICA
Villages, Towns and Cities (Latest Year)
Share of population living in villages, towns and cities
Top 20 countries by share living in cities
DATASET CURATED, VERIFIED & DESIGNED BY PaneoTech FOR CLIMATE WATCH AFRICA
Urban Slums
Proportion of urban population living in slums (latest available)
Highest slum incidence
Mega-Cities & Large Agglomerations
Population in urban agglomerations > 1 million (% of total)
Highest mega-city share
DATASET CURATED, VERIFIED & DESIGNED BY PaneoTech FOR CLIMATE WATCH AFRICA
Urbanisation vs Employment in Agriculture
Each dot is an African country (latest available year)
DATASET CURATED, VERIFIED & DESIGNED BY PaneoTech FOR CLIMATE WATCH AFRICA
Major African Cities (Top 100 World Cities Dataset)
Population of selected African cities within the world’s 100 largest cities
Top 10 African cities by population (latest year)
Selected city – population over time
DATASET CURATED, VERIFIED & DESIGNED BY PaneoTech FOR CLIMATE WATCH AFRICA
Country Urban Share (%) Slums (% of urban) Largest City (% of urban) >1M Agglomerations (% of total) Employment in Agriculture (%)
DATASET CURATED, VERIFIED & DESIGNED BY PaneoTech FOR CLIMATE WATCH AFRICA
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