PARIS - Africapolis, the continent’s geospatial database on cities and urbanisation dynamics, has just been updated! It shows that Africa now has at least 8 500 urban agglomerations with populations of 10 000 people or more, of which 1 700 were added in 2015-20.
Africa is projected to have the fastest urban growth rate in the world — by 2050, Africa’s cities will be home to an additional 950 million people. Urban planning and management are therefore essential development challenges, which require a better understanding of urbanisation, its drivers, dynamics and impacts, in order to design targeted, inclusive and forward-looking policies at the local, national and continental levels.
Africapolis data provides the evidence that can support cities and governments to make urban areas more inclusive, productive and sustainable.
There are only few big cities but many small ones
In Africa, as elsewhere, there are only few big cities but many small ones. The continent has 11 urban areas with more than five million inhabitants and more than 7,500 secondary cities with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants. Yet, many of these urban agglomerations are absent from most international databases.
No internationally accepted definition of urban
There is no universal (or even generally accepted) definition of cities or urban agglomerations. The word city most commonly refers to a politico-administrative unit whose boundaries and legal status are defined by national governments according to varying administrative, political and/or functional criteria, contexts and objectives.
The notion of “urban” is often conflated with meaning “city”. Definitions vary from country to country and in some cases, over time within the same country. These differences are mirrored in the data collected and are often reproduced in international comparisons. The heterogeneity of the data provided by national statistics presents a problem for comparing and analysing urbanisation across countries – a problem identified in the 1929 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica: “The census returns of most countries classify the population into urban and rural, but while these figures are useful for comparing changes in the same country between two dates, they are of little use when comparing two countries. This is so because the classification is based upon very different methods in different countries.
Most definitions are based on administrative, numerical and functional criteria, or a combination of all three. In African countries, the most widely used criteria is administrative (25 countries), followed by mixed (15 countries) and numerical (13 countries, ranging from 1,500 to 30,000 inhabitants). However, in all countries definitions of a city specify administrative units. The boundaries of the administrative units are precise and fixed. However, in reality, cities are alive. They evolve, develop and grow – often beyond the original administrative boundaries of a city.
Top 50 agglomerations in Africa
Among the five largest urban agglomerations in Africa are four familiar hubs of global business, media and policy making – Cairo, Lagos, Johannesburg and Kinshasa. The continent’s third largest urban area with 8.5 million inhabitants - Onitsha, Nigeria – is, however, not (yet) a familiar household name. A large urban area is emerging – driven by growth and the merging of built-up areas forming one large agglomeration.
LARGEST URBAN AREAS BY BUILT-UP AREA
Twenty of the 50 largest agglomeration by built-up area are in Nigeria and Kenya. One of the main drivers of urban growth in Africa is the expansion of built-up areas, leading to an absorption of and merging with urban agglomerations and smaller settlements. Environmental characteristics, such as relief and land use, impact urban forms and the size of built-up areas.
DENSEST URBAN AREAS
Forty-five of the 50 urban areas with the highest density in terms of inhabitants per square kilometre are in Egypt. Urban forms are influenced by a variety of factors – history and culture, policy and environment. The aridity of Egypt’s climate drives a particular pattern of land use leading to exceptionally high population densities.
