Demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

features of the population of

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

include

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and others.

Population

According to the total population was in , compared to only 5,158,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2015 was 48.1 percent, 49.4 percent was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 2.5 percent was 65 years or older.Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision
Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 27.VIII.2014): Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.VII.2020) (Based on the results of the 2014 Population Census.):

United Nations population projections

Numbers are in thousands.

Refugee population

According to the

UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and Humanitarian protection, protect refugees, Internally displaced person, forcibly displaced communities, and Statelessness, s ...

, Uganda hosts over 1.1 million refugees on its soil as of November 2018. Most come from neighbouring countries in the

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes (; ) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tangan ...

region, particularly

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

(68.0%) and

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

(24.6%).

Vital statistics

Registration of births and deaths in Uganda is not yet complete. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs prepared the following estimates.

Demographic and Health Surveys

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)(Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Fertility data as of 2011 and 2016 (DHS Program):

Life expectancy at birth

Ethnic groups

Baganda The Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are officially recognised), th ...

16.5% *

Banyankole The Nkole people, also known as the Banyankole, are a Bantu ethnic group native to the Ankole region of Uganda. They are primarily found in the southwestern part of the country, in what was historically known as the Ankole Kingdom. The Banyankol ...

9.8% *

Basoga The Soga (also called Basoga) are a Bantu ethnic group native to the kingdom of Busoga in eastern Uganda. The Basoga live in Uganda's districts of Bugiri, Iganga, Jinja, Kamuli, and Mayuge (formerly known collectively as Busoga) though new distr ...

8.8% *

Bakiga Kiga people, or ''Abakiga'' ("people of the mountains"), are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group native to south western Uganda and northern Rwanda. History Origins The Kiga people are believed to have their origins in Rwanda. This is mentione ...

7.1% *

Iteso ''ITESO, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara'' — distinct from the University of Guadalajara — also known as ''Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, ITESO'' (Western Institute of Technology and Higher Education), is a ...

7% * Langi 6.3% *

Bagisu The Gisu people, or ''Bamasaba'' people of Elgon, are a Bantu tribe and Bantu-speaking ethnic group of the Masaba people in eastern Uganda, closely related to the Bukusu people of Kenya. Bamasaba live mainly in the Mbale District of Uganda on t ...

4.9% *

Acholi Acholi may refer to: * Acholi people, a Luo nation of Uganda, in the Northern part of the country. * Acholi language, a Nilotic language * Acholi Inn, a building in Gulu, Uganda * Acholi nationalism, a political ideology of Acholi people {{dab ...

4.4% *

Lugbara Lugbara may refer to: *Lugbara people *Lugbara language Lugbara, or Lugbarati, is the language of the Lugbara people. It is spoken in the West Nile region in northwestern Uganda, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Orientale Provi ...

3.3% *Other 32.1% *Multi-racial (unknown percentage, recognized in 2016 in Uganda as a multi-racial ethnic group) Multiracial Ugandans in Uganda

South Asians and Arabs

During the

Uganda Protectorate The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Br ...

period, the British colonialists used

South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

immigrants as intermediaries. Following independence they constituted the largest non-indigenous ethnic group in Uganda, at around 80,000 people, and they dominated trade, industry, and the professions. This caused resentment among the native

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n majority, which was exploited by post-Independence leaders. After

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 30 May 192816 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until Uganda–Tanzania War, his overthrow in 1979. He ruled as a Military dictatorship, ...

came to power in 1971, he declared "economic war" on the Indians, culminating in the

Expulsion of Asians in Uganda in 1972 In early August 1972, the President of Uganda Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of his country's Indians in Uganda, Indian minority, giving them 90 days to leave the country. At the time, South Asians in East Africa were simply known as "Asians". Th ...

. Since Amin's overthrow in 1979 some Asians have returned. There are between 15,000 and 25,000 in Uganda today, nearly all in the capital

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,875,834 (2024) and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kampala, Kawempe Division, Kawempe, Makindy ...

Languages

English (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts),

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language officially used in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes. * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa. * Swahili culture, the culture of the Swahili p ...

(recently made second official language, important regionally but spoken by very few people in Uganda),

Luganda Ganda or Luganda ( ; ) is a Bantu language spoken in the African Great Lakes region. It is one of the major languages in Uganda and is spoken by more than 5.56 million Ganda people, Baganda and other people principally in central Uganda, includ ...

(most widely used of the

Niger–Congo languages Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic–Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), and possibly several smaller groups ...

, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school), other

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

Nilo-Saharan languages The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari River, Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the tw ...

and Arabic.

Religion

: Protestant 45.1% :: Anglican 32.0% :: Pentecostal/Born Again/Evangelical 11.1% :: Seventh Day Adventist 1.7% :: Baptist .3% : Roman Catholic 39.3% : Muslim 13.7% : other 1.6% : none 0.2% (2014 est.)

is a religiously diverse nation with

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

being the most widely professed religion. According to the 2014 census, over 84 percent of the population was Christian while about 14 percent of the population adhered to Islam, making it the largest minority religion.Census 2014 Final Results
/ref> In 2009, the northern and west Nile regions were dominated by Roman Catholics, and

Iganga District Iganga District is a district in the Eastern Region of Uganda. The town of Iganga is the site of the district headquarters. Location Iganga District is bordered by Kaliro District to the north, Namutumba District to the northeast, Bugweri Dist ...

in the east of Uganda had the highest percentage of Muslims, about 53% population.

References

{{Human rights in Uganda