Egypt’s population is set to reach 91 million people as of Sunday evening, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS).
In a press release, CAPMAS said Egypt’s population increased by 1 million people over the past six months. On 6 December, the population stood at 90 million people.
According to CAPMAS, the population growth rate is currently one of the most important and most dangerous challenges facing Egyptian society. The current growth rate of the population recorded 2.4% in 2015—five times the rate in developed countries, double the rate in developing countries, eight times the growth rate in South Korea, and five times the rate in China.
CAPMAS stated that continued population growth at current rates would limit and heavily affect achieving significant progress in standards of living, despite the efforts of the state in various fields of economic development.
The agency stressed the need to balance between population growth rates and the economic potential of the state and its available resources.
Cairo Governorate is the largest province in terms of population size with 9.51 million residents, 10.45% of the total population. Giza follows with 7.84 million and a rate of 8.6% of the population in Egypt. In third place is Sharqeya with 6.7 million residents who represent 7.4% of Egyptians in the country.
According to CAPMAS, the South Sinai governorate is the least populated, with only 171,000 residents (0.18%), preceded by the New Valley Governorate with 233,000 and the Red Sea governorate with 358,000 residents.
Egypt’s population resides in only 7.7% of the country’s total area.
