Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Congo - Brazzaville: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Congo - Brazzaville, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Congo - Brazzaville in the interactive map
History of Islam in Congo - Brazzaville
The Republic of the Congo with its capital Brazzaville has a total area of 342,000 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.4.4. It was occupied by France in 1886 and gained independence from France in 1960. Islam entered here in mid nineteenth century with Muslim traders coming from North Africa and early twentieth century by immigrants from West Africa. The Muslim population was estimated at 2,000 or 0.3% in 1922. The first census recorded 4,343 Muslims or 0.6% of the population. This excluded the population of Point-Noire which was censused in 1958 with total population of 54,573 but did not include information on religious affiliation. The next census that collected such information was conducted in 2007 and recorded 60,000 or 1.6% of the total population was Muslim. According to DHS survey data, the percentage of Muslims was 1.61% in 2005, 1.25% in 2009 and 2.39% in 2012.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by half of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach half a million or 4.5% by 2050 and exceed one million or 7% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Congo - Brazzaville
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 | 240.0 | 0.816 | 0.34% |
| 2000 | 3,056 | 49.50 | 1.62% |
| 2100 | 17,138 | 1,200 | 7.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.