Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Gabon: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Gabon, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Gabon in the interactive map
History of Islam in Gabon
The Gabonese Republic has an area of 267,667 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.4.7. It was occupied by France in 1885 and gained its independence in 1960. In 1967, Albert-Bernard Bongo became a president. He embraced Islam in 1973 and changed his name to Omar Bongo. He remained president of Gabon until his death in 2009, when his son Ali Bongo became the next president.
Islam entered here at the turn of the twentieth century with traders from West Africa. By 1922, the Muslim population consisted of about fifty individuals living in the Capital Libreville, or 0.01% of the total population. Estimates of the Muslim population increased to 2,000 or 0.2% in 1970, to 67,000 or 10.0% in 1982, to 0.12 million or 12.0% in 1993. Then according to DHS, the Muslim population increased to 0.14 million or 9.4% in 2003, and 0.18 million or 10.9% in 2013. Most of Muslims in Gabon however are immigrants from West Africa. Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by one percentage point per decade, then the Muslim population is expected to exceed half a million or 15% by 2050 and one million or 20% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Gabon
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 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| 2000 | 1,256 | 118.6 | 9.44% |
| 2100 | 5,262 | 1,052 | 20.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.