Islam in Congo - Kinshasa: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Congo - Kinshasa

The Democratic Republic of the Congo with its capital Kinshasa has a total area of 2,344,858 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.4.5. It was occupied by the Belgians in 1885 and named the Congo Free State, then it was made a Belgian colony in 1908 when it was renamed the Belgian Congo and it gained its independence from Belgium in 1960. Its name was Zaire between 1965 and 1997.

Islam entered here during the nineteenth century through commerce. By 1861 the eastern part as far as the city of Kindu on the Congo River was under the Muslim Sultanate of Zanzibar. Muslim population was estimated to be 1,000 or 0.01% in 1920. Based on census data, the Muslim population increased to 77,600 or 0.6% in 1957 and 415,000 or 1.4% in 1984. According to DHS, the percentage of Muslims was 1.49% in 2007 and 1.33% in 2014.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims remains fixed at 1.5%; then the Muslim population is expected to exceed three million by 2050 and six million by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Congo - Kinshasa

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.