Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area in Africa
Africa: Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area was 5,070 1000 ha in 2022. ▲ Rising
Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area in Africa, 1992–2022
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Measured in 1000 ha.
Analysis
The most recent figure for artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Africa is 5,070 1000 ha, measured in 2022. That is the highest value across all 31 years on record.
The figure is up 5.8% on the previous year and up 67.5% over ten years.
Over the whole period, artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Africa peaked at 5,070 1000 ha in 2022 and was at its lowest, 1,537 1000 ha, in 1992.
That places Africa 9th out of 26 groups with data for 2022, putting it in the middle of the range.
The long-run direction has been consistently rising across the 31 years of available data.
Averages by decade
| Decade | Average | Lowest | Highest | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 1,674 1000 ha | 1,537 1000 ha | 1,814 1000 ha | 8 |
| 2000s | 2,334 1000 ha | 1,862 1000 ha | 2,762 1000 ha | 10 |
| 2010s | 3,407 1000 ha | 2,843 1000 ha | 4,043 1000 ha | 10 |
| 2020s | 4,779 1000 ha | 4,473 1000 ha | 5,070 1000 ha | 3 |
Countries ranked near Africa
More environment data for Africa
- Standard Deviation, annual growth rate 0 % change on previous year (2025)
- Historical exposure to drought — Cropland soil moisture anomaly -7.12 Percentage change (2025)
- Historical exposure to drought — Land soil moisture anomaly -7.93 Percentage change (2025)
- Temperature change 1.32 °C (2025)
- Standard Deviation 0.213 °C (2025)
- Primary wood and paper products (export/import) — Export value 5.54 million 1000 USD (2024)
- Roundwood, coniferous — Production 32.26 million m3 (2024)
- Roundwood — Export value 714,851 1000 USD (2024)
- Roundwood — Export quantity 3.78 million m3 (2024)
- Roundwood — Import value 182,147 1000 USD (2024)
Frequently asked questions
- What is artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Africa?
- Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Africa was 5,070 1000 ha in 2022, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
- What is the highest artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area recorded in Africa?
- The highest recorded value was 5,070 1000 ha in 2022.
- What is the lowest artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area recorded in Africa?
- The lowest recorded value was 1,537 1000 ha in 1992.
- How does Africa rank for artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area?
- Africa ranks 9th out of 26 groups with data for 2022.
- Is artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area rising or falling in Africa?
- Over the last ten years it is up 67.5%. The long-run trend across the full record is rising.
- Where does this Africa data come from?
- The figures come from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, published as part of Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area from CCI_LC. Statizoid updates them automatically from the source API.
Download this data
CSV · JSON — 31 observations, free to reuse under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (FAO).
About this data
The FAOSTAT domain on Land Cover data under the Agri-Environmental Indicators section contains land cover information organized by the land cover classes of the international standard system for Environmental and Economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA CF). The land cover information is compiled from publicly available Global Land Cover (GLC) maps: a) MODIS land cover types based on the Land Cover Classification System, LCCS; b) The European Spatial Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) annual land cover maps produced by the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)-Geomatics and now under the European Copernicus Program; c) The annual land cover maps which were produced under the European Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) (CGLS land cover, containing discrete land cover categorization), with spatial resolution 100m; and d) the WorldCover maps of the European Space Agency, produced at 10m resolution.