Islam in Burkina Faso: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Burkina Faso

It has a total area of 274,200 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.2.1a. It was occupied by France in 1896. It gained independence from France in 1960 as Upper Volta but changed its name to Burkina Faso in 1984. Islam entered here with Muslim merchants coming from the northwest early in the fourteenth century. However, by 1890 the Muslim population was estimated at 30,000 or 1.4% of the total population. The Muslim population then increased substantially to 250,000 or 10.2% in 1910, to 0.44 million or 14.9% in 1921, to 0.70 million or 22.8% in 1948, to 1.18 million or 27.5% in 1961 (demographic survey), then almost doubled to 2.03 million or 36% in 1975, then almost doubled again to 3.58 million or 45% in 1985. Later census data as summarized in Table 3.2.2a, showed that the Muslim population increased to 5.8 million or 55.9% in 1996, to 8.5 million or 60.5% in 2006, to 11.6 million or 63.8% in 2019.

A choropleth map illustrating the presence of Muslims per administrative region is presented in Figure 3.2.2b. In addition, Table 3.2.2b provides the distribution of total population (P) and Muslims (M) with their percentage (M%) and ratio of total Muslims in the country (MR) per administrative region since 1961.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by two percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach 28 million or 70% by 2050 and fifty million or 80% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Burkina Faso

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.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.