Islam in Vanuatu: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Vanuatu

The Republic of Vanuatu gained its independence in 1980 from France and the UK, when it changed its name from New Hebrides. It was under joint British and France administration since 1906. It has a total area of 12,281 sq km, comprising over eighty islands, covering about half a million sq km of the South Pacific Ocean. The largest islands are Santo (3,956 sq km), with a sixth of the population, Malekula (2,041 sq km), with a tenth of the population, Efate (900 sq km) with almost a third of the population and the capital Port Vila, Erromango (888 sq km), Ambrym (678 sq km), Tanna (550 sq km), with one-eighth of the population, Pentecost (490 sq km), Epi (444 sq km), Gaua (342 sq km), Vanualava (314 sq km), Aneityum (159 sq km), Hiu (51 sq km) and Ureparapara (39 sq km).

Islam was introduced to Vanuatu by Hussein Nabanga who converted to Islam while training to be a Christian missionary in India.

Islam is made up of Ni-Vanuatu converts and is spreading very fast. It started with the return of Hussein Nabanga in 1978, reaching twenty or 0.01% in 1989, to forty or 0.02% in 1999. According to the 2009 census, the Muslim population was 103 or 0.04% of the total population. They are located in two southern islands as follows:

• Efate: 67 or 0.10% of the total population of 65,734.
• Tanna: 36 or 0.13% of the total population of 28,799.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.02 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to increase to less than a thousand or 0.1% by 2050 and exceed two thousand or 0.2% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Vanuatu

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.