Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Central African Republic: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Central African Republic, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Central African Republic in the interactive map
History of Islam in Central African Republic
It has an area of 622,984 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.4.3a. It was occupied by France in 1889 and upon independence from France in 1960 it changed its name from Ubangi-Shari. Islam entered here through trade in early nineteenth century. The number of Muslims increased from 16,000 or 2.5% in 1960 (survey) 318,000 or 10.3% in 2003 (census), most of whom live in the north of the country.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by one percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to be close to two million or 15% by 2050 and close to four million or 20% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Central African Republic
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 | 595.0 | 14.99 | 2.52% |
| 2000 | 3,706 | 382.5 | 10.32% |
| 2100 | 18,771 | 3,754 | 20.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.