Demographics of Uganda
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Through Demography, Population density and Ethnicity
Population
According to the 2022 revision of the World Population Prospects the total population was 45,853,778 in 2021, 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 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
By October 2025, Uganda hosted roughly 1.95 million refugees, more than any other country in Africa. Most are rural groups mainly from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as from Somalia, Burundi, and Rwanda. From 2023, more than 90,000 refugees fleeing the civil war in Sudan have entered.
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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):
View source data. View source data. View source data.
Fertility data as of 2011 and 2016 (DHS Program):
Life expectancy at birth
Ethnic groups
- Baganda 16.5%
- Banyankole 9.8%
- Basoga 8.8%
- Bakiga 7.1%
- Iteso 7%
- Langi 6.3%
- Bagisu 4.9%
- Acholi 4.4%
- Lugbara 3.3%
- Other 32.1%
- Multi-racial (unknown percentage)
South Asians and Arabs
During the Uganda Protectorate period, the British colonialists used South Asian 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 African majority, which was exploited by post-Independence leaders.
After Idi Amin came to power in 1971, he declared "economic war" on the Indians, culminating in the Expulsion of Asians in Uganda in 1972. 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.
Languages
English (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts), Swahili (recently made second official language, important regionally but spoken by very few people in Uganda), Luganda (most widely used of the Niger–Congo languages, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school), other Bantu languages, Nilo-Saharan languages 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.)
Uganda is a religiously diverse nation with Christianity 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. In 2009, the northern and west Nile regions were dominated by Roman Catholics, and Iganga District in the east of Uganda had the highest percentage of Muslims, about 53% population.