Demographic features of the population of Senegal include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. About 42% of Senegal's population is rural. In rural areas, population density varies from about 77 per square kilometer (200/mile²) in the west-central region to 2 per square kilometer (5/mile²) in the arid eastern section. The average population density for the country is 68 /km2. French is the official language but is used regularly only by the literate minority. Almost all Senegalese speak an indigenous language, of which Wolof has the largest usage. Many Senegalese live in Europe, particularly in France, Italy and Spain.

Population

According to the 2018 revision of the World Population Review the total population was 16,302,789 in May 2018, compared to only 2,416,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2017 was 41.5%, between 15 and 54 years of age was 31.1%, while 55 years or older was 6.9%. Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (Estimates 1.VII.2020) (Data refer to national projections.):

Vital statistics

Registration of vital events in Senegal is not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.

Fertility and births

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Fertility data by region (DHS Program):

Life expectancy

Ethnic groups

Languages

French (official), Wolof, Pulaar, Hassaniya Arabic, Serer, Jola, Mandinka, Soninke, Arabic

Religion

The religious beliefs of the 2016 population of Senegal are: Muslim 96.1% (mostly Sunni), Christian 3.6% (mostly Roman Catholic), animist 0.3%.

Other general statistics

The following demographic statistics of Senegal are from the World Population Review. The following demographic are from the CIA World Factbook unless otherwise indicated.

Population

Religion

Muslim 97.2% (most adhere to one of the four main Sufi brotherhoods), Christian 2.7% (mostly Roman Catholic) (2019 est.)

Age structure

Birth rate

Death rate

Total fertility rate

Population growth rate

Median age

total: 19.4 years. Country comparison to the world: 203rd male: 18.5 years female: 20.3 years (2020 est.)

Mother's mean age at first birth

note: median age at first birth among women 25-29

Contraceptive prevalence rate

Net migration rate

Dependency ratios

Urbanization

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 69.96 years. Country comparison to the world: 171st male: 68.23 years female: 71.77 years (2022 est.)

Urbanization

Major infectious diseases

note: on 21 March 2022, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Africa; Senegal is currently considered a high risk to travelers for circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV); vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus; this means it can be spread more easily to people who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or respiratory secretions, such as from a sneeze, of an “infected” person who received oral polio vaccine; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine

Maternal mortality ratio

Drinking water source

Education expenditures

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write (2017 est.) total population: 51.9% male: 64.8% female: 39.8% (2017 est.)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)

Unemployment, youth ages 15-24

Gender ratio

Emigration

Senegal was historically a destination country for neighboring economic migrants, but in recent decades West African migrants more often use Senegal as a transit point to North Africa, or as a stop before continuing illegally onward to Europe. The country also has been host to several thousand black Mauritanian refugees since they were expelled from Mauritania during the 1989 border conflict with Senegal. The country's economic crisis in the 1970s stimulated emigration; departures accelerated from the 1990s. Destinations shifted from neighboring countries to Libya and Mauritania, because of their booming oil industries, and to France, Italy and Spain.