A bit of demography
Let's talk numbers! In 2020, according to UN estimates, Uganda had a population of nearly 45.8 million with a natural variation rate (difference between the birth rate and the death rate) among the highest in the world: 3.3%. The data speak for themselves, as in 2010 the country's overall population stood at 32.4 million, a gain of 13.4 million people in just one decade! As a result, the proportion of children under 15 years of age is around 46% (by comparison, it will represent 17.7% of the French population in 2021) and the median age is 16.7 years. While the base of the Ugandan age pyramid is broad, its apex is tapered, with the over-65s constituting only 2% of the population. Life expectancy at birth, which has increased steadily over the past 20 years, is just over 64 years. Net migration, which affects population growth, is also a factor: during the period 2015-2020, 843 000 immigrants (mostly refugees) settled in Uganda. The population density is 190 inhabitants per km². Relatively high, it conceals significant regional disparities. For example, districts in the north-east of the country are sparsely populated, while many of their southern counterparts are well above the 190 inhabitants per km² mark. Currently, a quarter of the Ugandan population lives in urban areas. The country therefore remains largely rural. The ten main population centres are Kampala (1.6 million inhabitants in the inner city), Gulu (153,000 residents), Lira (119,200), Masaka (104,000), Mbale (100,000), Mbarara (97,500), Jinja (93,000), Entebbe (75,000), Mukono (70,000) and Kasese (67,000).
The Ugandan ethnic colour chart
In Uganda, there are nearly fifty ethnic groups divided into two main linguistic and cultural groups: the populations of Bantu origin and those of Nilotic origin. The Bantu, whose main groups are the Baganda, the Banyankole and the Bakiga, represent three quarters of the population and occupy the southern half of the country. The Nilotic peoples (Acholi, Karamojong, Langi), who, as their name suggests, came from the banks of the Nile in Sudan and Ethiopia, are settled in northern Uganda and are characterized by the predominance of pastoral activities. Numerically speaking, the Baganda are the largest ethnic group (17% of the total population). They are the cultural heirs of the Buganda kingdom and can be found in the capital and around Lake Victoria. In the immense plains of the north, the Acholi, who make up 5% of the population, are considered the first victims of the twenty-year conflict between the LRA rebels and Museveni's government forces, to the point that some observers do not hesitate to speak of genocide. Uganda also has a certain number of refugees who arrived in the country at the time of the various crises in the region: Rwandans and Congolese in the west, South Sudanese in the north and Kenyans in the east. Finally, there are some 9,000 Indians who, although perceived from the outside as a community, are clearly differentiated in terms of origin and social and religious composition.
A thousand and one idioms
The official language is English. It soon becomes apparent that English, which is favoured by the country's elites, is very little used outside urban areas. Although it is taught in primary schools and widely disseminated by the media, it is said to be correctly spoken and understood by about 2 million Ugandans, i.e. barely 4% of the total population. In addition, there are over 40 vernacular languages, both Bantu and Nilo-Saharan. Bantu languages account for half of the country's languages and account for about 70% of the speakers. They are spoken throughout the southern part of the country, which corresponds to the administrative regions of the West, Centre and East. The languages spoken by more than 100,000 speakers are primarily Luganda (the mother tongue of some 8.5 million Ugandan citizens), Nyanrore, Chiga, Soga, Masaba, Kinyarwanda, Nyoro, Toro, Kenyi, Konjo, Gwere, Luyia and Nyole. The Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken in the north and east. They are divided into several groups: Eastern Sudanese, Central Sudanese and Kouliak. The most important Nilo-Saharan languages are Lango, Teso, Acholi (Luo), Aringa, Alur, Karamojong, Lugbara, Ndo, Ma'di, Kuman and Kupsabiny. The languages of the Kouliak group (ik and soo), used by fewer than 7,500 speakers, are threatened with extinction in the near future. In addition to the above-mentioned language families, Gujarati and Hindi are used by Indo-Pakistani immigrants and French by some Congolese from Kigezi as well as by former Ugandan refugees returning from the DRC. Finally, let us conclude with Swahili. This idiom is the most important in East Africa: between 80 and 110 million people speak it from Kenya to Mozambique. A mixture of Arabic and African languages, this language (called Kiswahili) is a mother tongue for only about 400,000 Ugandan speakers, but about 90% of the indigenous population use it as a second language. Swahili has always been a lingua franca in the Ugandan army and police. Indeed, since the British protectorate, the members of these two institutions belong to different ethnic groups, the only language that can ensure effective communication is Swahili. Under Idi Amin Dada's regime, Swahili was despised because it was associated with the brutality of illiterate soldiers, but after the Tanzanian army helped bring down the tyrant, Swahili was seen as the prestigious language of the liberators. The place of Swahili in Uganda remains ambiguous, as some would like to unify Ugandans around Swahili to limit the importance of Luganda.
