Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Guinea Bissau: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Guinea Bissau, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Guinea Bissau in the interactive map
History of Islam in Guinea Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau has an area of 36,125 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.2.8. It was occupied by the Portuguese in 1446 and gained its independence from Portugal in 1974, when it changed its name from Portuguese Guinea to Guinea-Bissau, where Bissau is its capital. Islam entered here in the fourteenth century through Mali Kingdom which conquered these lands. The Muslim population was estimated in 1921 at 40,000 or 18.6% of the total population. Based on census data, the Muslim population continued to increase from 0.18 million or 35.6% in 1950, to 0.45 million or 45.9% in 1991, to 0.65 million or 53.6% in 2009. In the last census, 282,296 were excluded from the total as their religion was not collected.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase at two percentage points per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to be over two million or 62% by 2050 and over three million or 72% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Guinea Bissau
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 | 386.0 | 71.80 | 18.60% |
| 2000 | 1,218 | 609.0 | 50.00% |
| 2100 | 4,762 | 3,429 | 72.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.