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In the first eight years of studying the worldwide development of the internet I never published an analysis of the situation in Africa.

I tried several times to learn something from available data, but (except in the case of South Africa) numbers were too small to be meaningful – except for the obvious fact that most of Africa was practically excluded from the development of the internet. Though some of the figures aren’t as tiny as they used to be, even now, in several cases, they are only marginally relevant. But there is growth in some parts of Africa – so, starting in 2004, this report is taking a closer look to what is happening in the continent with the lowest general level of internet activity.

Two facts are clear. Most of the continent has a very low hostcount. And 65 percent the total is in one country, South Africa, that has 5 percent of Africa’s population.

Percent growth in Africa in 2006 was much higher than the world average – not so in 2007 (see the “large areas” trends in international data) but one or two years are too short to understand relevant evolution. The fact is that, with 14 percent of the world’s population, Africa still has only 0.3 percent of global actvity in the internet – with a total of less than two million hosts, as compared to 120 million in Europe, 67 in Asia and 27 in Latin America.

This table shows the situation in the 22 African countries with over a thousand internet hosts (that have 99.6 percent of the total hostcount in Africa.)

	Number of hosts December 2007	% of Africa	Per 1000 inhab.
South Africa	1,197,088	65.4	25.3
Morocco	273,748	15.2	9.0
Egypt	175,392	9.7	2.4
Ghana	24,147	1.3	1.1
Kenya	23,558	1.3	0.69
Mozambique	22,678	1.3	1.1
Tanzania	20,857	1.2	0.55
Zimbabwe	17,974	1.0	1.5
Madagascar	10,686	0.6	0.69
Mauritius	9,792	0.5	7.8
Zambia	7,615	0.4	0.66
Namibia	6,621	0.4	3.3
Ivory Coast	6,273	0.4	0.32
Botswana	6,263	0.4	3.5
Angola	5,533	0.3	0.35
Swaziland	2,672	0.2	2.4
Nigeria	2,498	0.1	0.02
Congo *	2,288	0.1	0.04
Rwanda	1,744	0.1	0.19
Uganda	1,365	0.08	0.05
Eritrea	1,304	0.07	0.29
São Tomé & Pr.	1,158	0.06	7.8
Africa	1,830,000		2.0

* There are two countries called Congo.
Data here are for the larger,
the Congo Democratic Republic, capital Kinshasa.
The other Congo Republic, capital Brazzaville,
has less than 200 hosts and an equally low density.
 

As explained in international data world average density
is 43 hosts per 1000 inhabitants

In a general situation of very low internet activity there are relevant differences. A large recent change was in Morocco, that had strong growth in 2004-2005 (and now has higher density that any other African country, except South Africa.)  In North Africa, also the position of Egypt is different from the rest of the area, where hostcount figures remain extremely low. Libya and Algeria have densiry as low as Nigeria, Tunisia aren’t doing much better.

In the rest of Africa there are some indications of growth in a few countries, such as Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania – more recently Ghana, Madagascar and the Ivory Coast There is relatively high density, compared to most of the continent, in some “small” countries such as Namibia, Swaziland and Botswana (also Mauritius and other islands.)

In this “pie” graph we see the situation of the nine African countries with over 10,000 internet hosts (that have 96.5 percent of the total in the continent.)

9 African countries

Eighty percent of the hostcount in Africa remains concentrated in two countries, that have less than 9 percent of the population.

If, for better readability of the chart, we remove South Africa and the two North African countries with (relatively) higher online activity, this is the picture in the other 18 countries in Africa with over one thousand internet hosts.

18 African countries

The size of South Africa is reduced to less than half for graph readability.

The reliability of data is always doubtful, especially with small numbers, but the situation is evolving and it’s very likely that there will be more changes.

The “rest of Africa” includes over thirty countries with very low internet activity. In some (such as Zaire) statistical surveys were unable to identify a single active internet host. The hostcout in Nigeria, with 140 million inhabitants, is a third of the number in Liechtenstein. And so in Congo – even worse in Sudan.

Ethiopia, with 75 million inhabitants, has slightly more that a hundred hosts /fwer than Djibouti, population 700,000). Only one host is found in Somalia, while there is (comparativey) more activity in Eritrea. The total hostount in Africa is smaller than in Finland.

In the next graph we see density (hosts per 1000 inhabitants) in 21 African countries with over a thousand internet hosts.

Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants
in 21 African countries

The size of South Africa is reduced to less than half for graph readability.

The picture is different when internet activity is compared to income (GDP.)

Internet hosts in relation to income (GDP)
in 21 African countries

In relation to income, Morocco is close to South Africa. There are several changes, but internet activity in most of Africa remains very low by all standards.

These charts can’t be taken too seriously because (as pointed out at the beginning) figures are too small to be accurate, or even approximately close to reality. And these are only a few examples of the different, and complex, situations in many countries. But it’s clear that, even in a low-development environment such as Africa, local situations vary – and change over time.

Let’s look at this picture also as a map.

Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants

 
A small “dot” in the Gulf of Guinea shows density
in the São Tomé and Principe islands.
Another of the same color would appear in the Indian Ocean
if this map included Mauritius – and a blue one for the Seychelles.
In the Atlantic there would be, in red, Saint Helena.
But other islands are in the “white” density level.

The case of Lesotho, that appears as a low-density “hole” surrounded by South Africa,
is an example of how there can be such differences also inside each country.
If we could trace maps in greater detail we would find,
more so in Africa than in other parts of the world,
online activity restricted to a few urban areas or near communication resources
with hardly any links to the rest of the environment.
 

Compared to the maps in four other documents in this section  (World, Europe, Asia) and Latin America) the scale in this case is based on much lower density levels.

Also in other parts of the world it is noticeable that geographic “vicinity” has some influence – as in the case of countries close to South Africa (and French influence in Morocco.)  But the “somewhat better” developed areas are a small part of Africa.

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