A bit of demography
Let's talk numbers! In 2024, Uganda will have a population of 50 million, with a natural variation rate (difference between birth rate and death rate) among the highest in the world: 3.3%. The data speak for themselves: in 2010, the country's overall population stood at 32.4 million, an increase of 13.4 million in just one decade! As a result, the proportion of children under the age of 15 is around 46% (by comparison, it will represent 17% of the French population in 2024) and the median age is 16.7. As broad as the base of Uganda's age pyramid is, its apex is tapered, with the over-65s making up just 2% of the population. Life expectancy at birth, which has risen steadily over the past twenty years, is 63 for men and 64 for women. Net migration, which weighs on population growth, should also be taken into account: over the period 2015-2020, for example, 843,000 immigrants (mostly refugees) settled in Uganda. Today, Uganda remains one of the biggest refugee-hosting countries in Africa, mainly due to conflicts in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes region. Some 1.5 million refugees are currently registered. The population density is 230 inhabitants per km² (2024). Relatively high, it masks significant regional disparities. Districts in the north-east of the country are sparsely populated, while many of their southern counterparts happily exceed the 230 inhab/km² mark. Currently, a quarter of Uganda's population lives in urban areas. The country therefore remains essentially rural. The ten main population centers are Kampala (1.7 million inhabitants in the inner city), Gulu (166,000 residents), Lira (125,000), Masaka (112,000), Mbale (108,000), Mbarara (105,000), Jinja (100,000), Entebbe (85,000), Mukono (80,000) and Kasese (72,000).
The Ugandan ethnic colour chart
In Uganda, there are nearly fifty ethnic groups divided into two main linguistic and cultural groups: the populations of Bantu origin and those of Nilotic origin. The Bantu, whose main groups are the Baganda, the Banyankole and the Bakiga, represent three quarters of the population and occupy the southern half of the country. The Nilotic peoples (Acholi, Karamojong, Langi), who, as their name suggests, came from the banks of the Nile in Sudan and Ethiopia, are settled in northern Uganda and are characterized by the predominance of pastoral activities. Numerically speaking, the Baganda are the largest ethnic group (17% of the total population). They are the cultural heirs of the Buganda kingdom and can be found in the capital and around Lake Victoria. In the immense plains of the north, the Acholi, who make up 5% of the population, are considered the first victims of the twenty-year conflict between the LRA rebels and Museveni's government forces, to the point that some observers do not hesitate to speak of genocide. Uganda also has a certain number of refugees who arrived in the country at the time of the various crises in the region: Rwandans and Congolese in the west, South Sudanese in the north and Kenyans in the east. Finally, there are some 9,000 Indians who, although perceived from the outside as a community, are clearly differentiated in terms of origin and social and religious composition.
A thousand and one idioms
Uganda's two official languages are English and Swahili. The latter was officially recognized as a national and co-official language in 2022. This decision was taken at a meeting of the Heads of State of the East African Community (EAC), aimed at promoting regional integration and facilitating communication between member countries. Although English is favored by the elite and taught from elementary school onwards, its use remains limited outside urban areas. Some 2 million Ugandans (around 5% of the population) are thought to have a good command of English. And in fact, Luganda is the language most often heard! There are over forty vernacular languages, divided between the Bantu and Nilo-Saharan families. Bantu languages, which cover around 70% of the population, are in the majority in the south of the country, corresponding to the administrative regions of the West, Centre and East. Among the most widely spoken languages are Luganda (mother tongue of almost 8.5 million Ugandans), Nyoro, Toro, Chiga, Soga, Kinyarwanda and many others. In the north and east, Nilo-Saharan languages are divided into three main groups: Eastern Sudanese, Central Sudanese and Kouliak. The most widely spoken languages in these regions include Lango, Teso, Acholi (Luo) and Karamojong. Kouliak languages, such as Ik and Soo, are spoken by fewer than 7,500 speakers and are threatened with extinction. In addition to these local languages, Gujarati and Hindi are used by Indo-Pakistani communities, while French is spoken by some Congolese from Kigezi and former Ugandan refugees returning from the DRC. Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa, is spoken by around 90% of Ugandans as a second language, although it is only the mother tongue of some 400,000 speakers. Historically, Swahili has been used in the army and police to facilitate communication between members of different ethnic groups. Under Idi Amin's regime, the language was associated with military brutality, but it regained prestige after the Tanzanian army intervened to overthrow the regime in 1979, becoming the language of the liberators.
