African Cities: 35 with at least 5 million people by 2050: The Economist

[MolsonExport]

Detailed paper on the subject of Nigerian Population Projections:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/de...esentation.pdf

[Crawford]

I remember reading something in the Economist or the like about how Nigeria is around 50/50 Christian-Muslim, and the two sides are in competition for power, so this encourages large families in pursuit of eventual demographic "victory" (kind of like Israel-Palestine).

There were also some funny anecdotes about the unreliability of the Nigerian Census, where Christian census-takers would exaggerate the populations of the Christian areas and downgrade the populations of the Muslim areas, and the Muslim census-takers would do the reverse.

[Perklol]

Thanks, ue and chris08876.

[Eightball]

Excellent comments/posts Muppet.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I remember reading something in the Economist or the like about how Nigeria is around 50/50 Christian-Muslim, and the two sides are in competition for power, so this encourages large families in pursuit of eventual demographic "victory" (kind of like Israel-Palestine).

Sounds like an argument for partition.

[muppet]

I think Nigeria has alot going for it and will be a superpower in the future, despite it's current mountain of troubles. The Nigerians are for starters now the biggest spenders in London, having overtaken the American tourists and now the Indians for top sport. As for the community - over a million strong, they started off poor but within a decade became the best performers at school (overtaking the East Asians), were most likely to go onto university and land a high paid job. Almost everywhere they moved they transformed the working class, high crime area into a success- once notorious districts such as Hackney, Peckham, Dalston and Woolwich/ Greenwich whose land values more than doubled. If anything their success has been so phenomenal it's been hard to keep up, and levels are falling again as the new generation of Nigerian children don't work as hard, and start to resemble the natives.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by 10023

Sounds like an argument for partition.

Biafra

[Stratosphere 2020]

Africa is indeed rising up, for years already actually! Some economies on the continent are the fastest growing in the World, but we all look at China, India and Brazil. Africa is a silent power to be reckoned with in the future.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by Stratosphere 2020

Africa is indeed rising up, for years already actually! Some economies on the continent are the fastest growing in the World, but we all look at China, India and Brazil. Africa is a silent power to be reckoned with in the future.

When an economy starts near the bottom, then of course it's going to be one of the fastest-growing. Africa could have some powerful, wealthy cities if the governments could get corruption/rebellion/crime/poverty under control. Hopefully things are going in the right direction, but it's actually hard to tell.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by muppet

I think Nigeria has alot going for it and will be a superpower in the future, despite it's current mountain of troubles. The Nigerians are for starters now the biggest spenders in London, having overtaken the American tourists and now the Indians for top sport. As for the community - over a million strong, they started off poor but within a decade became the best performers at school (overtaking the East Asians), were most likely to go onto university and land a high paid job. Almost everywhere they moved they transformed the working class, high crime area into a success- once notorious districts such as Hackney, Peckham, Dalston and Woolwich/ Greenwich whose land values more than doubled. If anything their success has been so phenomenal it's been hard to keep up, and levels are falling again as the new generation of Nigerian children don't work as hard, and start to resemble the natives.

I teach with a woman from Nigeria...she told me that when she went home last summer, the police went through her bags at a checkpoint and took whatever they wanted. She couldn't say anything due to the risk of being beaten or arrested, and apparently this is a common occurrence. With that kind of environment it's hard to say that "Nigeria has a lot going for it".

And didn't they just pass a law making gay sex punishable by 14 years in prison? That is a very backwards society IMO.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by muppet

I think Nigeria has alot going for it and will be a superpower in the future, despite it's current mountain of troubles. The Nigerians are for starters now the biggest spenders in London, having overtaken the American tourists and now the Indians for top sport. As for the community - over a million strong, they started off poor but within a decade became the best performers at school (overtaking the East Asians), were most likely to go onto university and land a high paid job. Almost everywhere they moved they transformed the working class, high crime area into a success- once notorious districts such as Hackney, Peckham, Dalston and Woolwich/ Greenwich whose land values more than doubled. If anything their success has been so phenomenal it's been hard to keep up, and levels are falling again as the new generation of Nigerian children don't work as hard, and start to resemble the natives.

My public speaking professor is a witness to this.

[599GTO]

Originally Posted by muppet

I think Nigeria has alot going for it and will be a superpower in the future, despite it's current mountain of troubles. The Nigerians are for starters now the biggest spenders in London, having overtaken the American tourists and now the Indians for top sport. As for the community - over a million strong, they started off poor but within a decade became the best performers at school (overtaking the East Asians), were most likely to go onto university and land a high paid job. Almost everywhere they moved they transformed the working class, high crime area into a success- once notorious districts such as Hackney, Peckham, Dalston and Woolwich/ Greenwich whose land values more than doubled. If anything their success has been so phenomenal it's been hard to keep up, and levels are falling again as the new generation of Nigerian children don't work as hard, and start to resemble the natives.

Nigerian-Americans are also the most educated group of people in the United States.

They are gifted with high IQs yet the country is a dysfunctional mess. A great mystery.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by 10023

This, quite frankly, is something that needs to not happen. What an ecological and humanitarian travesty that would be.

They should consider a mandatory one child policy for the long term in the 21st century. I agree. It will be a ecological and humanitarian travesty. (In Nigeria)

[SHiRO]

Current metro population of African cities (according to my own research that may or may not be accurate )



Cairo 19,500,000
Lagos 15,000,000
Kinshasa 9,046,000**
Khartoum-Omdurman 5,275,000
Ibadan 5,175,000
Luanda 5,172,900
Abidjan 5,068,858
Kano 4,956,000
Addis Ababa 4,568,000
Alexandria 4,500,000
Johannesburg 4,434,827*
Nairobi 4,000,000
Port Harcourt 3,762,000
Cape Town 3,740,026
Casablanca 3,631,000
Accra 3,600,000
Algiers 3,574,000
Durban 3,442,361
East Rand 3,178,470*
Douala 3,000,000
Pretoria 2,921,488*
Harare 2,800,000
Benin City 2,571,000
Yaounde 2,500,000
Dar es Salaam 2,497,940
Dakar 2,453,000
Tunis 2,412,500
Tripoli 2,220,000
Oshogbo 2,089,000
Conakry 2,000,000
Kumasi 1,989,000
Bamako 1,800,000
Rabat 1,800,000
Lubumbashi 1,787,000
Maputo 1,767,000
Aba 1,700,000
Onitsha 1,700,000
Lusaka 1,700,000
Mbuji-Mayi 1,681,000
Kampala 1,659,600
Ouagadougou 1,626,950
Abuja 1,569,000
Brazzaville 1,500,000**
Bulawayo 1,500,000
Kaduna 1,500,000
Oran 1,500,000
Mogadishu 1,353,000
Niamey 1,303,000
Bouake 1,200,000
Freetown 1,200,000
Hargeisa 1,200,000
Maiduguri 1,200,000
Port Elizabeth 1,152,115
Ilorin 1,1500,000
Zaria 1,100,000
N'Djamena 1,093,000
Fes 1,073,000
Marrakech 1,064,000
Kananga 1,062,000
Asmara 1,053,000
Abeokuta 1,000,000
Akure 1,000,000
Bujumbura 1,000,000
Cotonou 1,000,000
Enugu 1,000,000
Goma 1,000,000
Kigali 1,000,000
Mombasa 1,000,000
Monrovia 1,000,000



Egypt
Nigeria
Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunesia, Libya, Mauritania)
Democratic Republic of the Congo
South Africa



* together form the Greater Johannesburg/Witwatersrand or Gauteng megacity
** together form the Kinshasa-Brazzaville megacity

[llamaorama]

Quote:

They are gifted with high IQs yet the country is a dysfunctional mess. A great mystery.

I don't know if it is really a mystery. Major world cities attract the best and brightest.

Doesn't this basically mean that Nigeria has a brain drain where the most exceptional are packing up their bags and leaving? That's a bad thing.

[osmo]

Ciaro and Lagos population figures vary wildly. The Government, regardless of what they print, have little concrete idea of how many people reside in both cities. I've herd estimates go as high as 30 million for Cairo, and 20 million for Lagos.

[nonjokegetter]

Originally Posted by 599GTO

Nigerian-Americans are also the most educated group of people in the United States.

They are gifted with high IQs yet the country is a dysfunctional mess. A great mystery.

Saying a particular demographic is gifted with high IQs kinda leaves the door open to say a different demographic is cursed with low IQs...kinda unsavory in my mind, but that's a different topic.

I think Nigerians culturally are big into hard work and sacrifice. That Nigerian cab driver that's working busy shifts 6 days a week for 30 years? He's doing that to provide for his family, and his kid- following his dad's lead as far as hard work goes, understanding the value of money- got a full ride to Duke. That's why they're succeeding.

[niwell]

Interesting list Shiro posted. In comparison with the original list it looks like Johannesburg is going to drop off as one of the larger cities in Africa? At over 10 million the combined Joburg/Pretoria metro area is massive - but I imagine the growth rate is not as high as many of the other places. Or wonder if the original article just didn't take the conurbation into account.

[Nite]

This might be a good place to add the following article:

Nigeria has become Africa's largest economy

FIGURES published on April 6th put Nigeria's GDP at 80.2 trillion naira ($509 billion) in 2013, taking it above South Africa in the rankings of the continent's economies by size. Its number-one rank was the result of updating the reference or "base" year used to calculate real GDP, from 1990 to 2010.



http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...9083042ad12e30

Besides South Africa, Nigeria has also passed:has also passed: Malaysia, Denmark, Thailand, Colombia, Venezuela, UAE ,Austria, Taiwan, Argentina and Belgium.

[SHiRO]

Originally Posted by osmo

Ciaro and Lagos population figures vary wildly. The Government, regardless of what they print, have little concrete idea of how many people reside in both cities. I've herd estimates go as high as 30 million for Cairo, and 20 million for Lagos.

Any population figure for Lagos would be highly speculative, though I think 15 million should be in the neighbourhood (but 17.5M would also be possible).
But I could be wrong, I've been surprised before (Karachi and Manila) at times when more official figures were released for cities that previously only had unreliable ones. Still, I think 15M for Lagos is a pretty good guestimate, but one with a relatively large margin of error, particularly upwards.



30 million for Cairo is pretty out there though if we're talking MSA equivalents or stricter (which I am).