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Egypt POPULATION
Unavailable
Figure 4. Estimated Population Distribution by Age and Sex, 1986
Source: Based on information from United States Bureau of the Census;
and Population, Housing, and Establishment Census, Cairo,
1986, 13, 17.
Egypt's population, estimated at 3 million when Napoleon
invaded the country in 1798, has increased at varying rates. The
population grew gradually and steadily throughout the nineteenth
century, doubling in size over the course of eighty years.
Beginning in the 1880s, the growth rate accelerated, and the
population increased more than 600 percent in 100 years. The
growth rate was especially high after World War II. In 1947 a
census indicated that Egypt's population was 19 million. A census
in 1976 revealed that the population had ballooned to 36.6
million. After 1976 the population grew at an annual rate of 2.9
percent and in 1986 reached a total of 50.4 million, including
about 2.3 million Egyptians working in other countries.
Projections indicated the population would reach 60 million by
1996.
Egypt's population in mid-1990 was estimated at 52.5 million,
about an 8 percent increase over the 1986 figure. The increase
meant that the annual population growth rate had slowed slightly
to 2.6 percent. Although Egypt's overall population density in
1990 was only about fifty-four people per square kilometer, close
to 99 percent of all Egyptians lived along the banks of the Nile
River in 3.5 percent of the country's total area. Average
population densities in the Nile Valley exceeded 1,500 per square
kilometer--one of the world's highest densities
(see
fig. 4).
According to the 1986 census, 51.1 percent of Egypt's
population was male and 48.9 percent female. More than 34 percent
of the population was twelve years old or younger, and 68 percent
was under age thirty. Fewer than 3 percent of Egyptians were
sixty-five years or older. In 1989 average life expectancy at
birth was fifty-nine years for men and sixty years for women. The
infant mortality rate was 94 deaths per 1,000 births. Although
the urban population has been increasing at a higher rate than
the rural population since the 1947 census, approximately 51
percent of people still lived in villages in 1986. By the end of
1989, however, demographers estimated the urban-rural
distribution to be equal.
Data as of December 1990
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