Demographics

The country has a significant overpopulation problem. Uganda’s population grew from 9.5 million people in 1969 to 34.9 million in 2014. With respect to the last inter-censal period (September 2002), the population increased by 10.6 million people in the past 12 years. Uganda’s median age of 15 years is the lowest in the world. Uganda has the fifth highest total fertility rate in the world, at 5.97 children born per woman (2014 estimates).

There were about 80,000 Indians in Uganda before Idi Amin required the expulsion of Ugandan-Asians (mostly of Indian origin) in 1972, which reduced the population to as low as 7,000. Many Indians, however, returned to Uganda after Amin’s fall ouster in 1979. Around 90 percent of Ugandan Indians reside in Kampala.

According to the UNHCR, Uganda hosted over 190,000 refugees in 2013. Most of the latter came from neighbouring countries in the African Great Lakes region, namely Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, and Sudan.