Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Angola: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Angola, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Angola in the interactive map
History of Islam in Angola
The Republic of Angola has an area of 1,246,700 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.5.1. It was occupied by the Portuguese in 1483 and gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. Islam entered here towards the middle of the twentieth century with West African migrants. The Muslim population remained small throughout the twentieth century but increased dramatically at the turn of the twenty-first century. According to census data, the Muslim population increased from eleven in 1950 to 100,000 or 0.4% in 2014.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of the Muslim population will increase by a tenth of a percentage point per decade, then the Muslim population is expected to exceed half million or 0.8% by 2050 and near two million or 1.3% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Angola
The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.
| Year | Total population (thousands) | Muslim population (thousands) | Muslim share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 4,790 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 16,127 | 48.38 | 0.30% |
| 2100 | 132,522 | 1,723 | 1.30% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.