Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β Area in Africa
Africa: Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β Area was 6,438 1000 ha in 2024. β² Rising
Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β Area in Africa, 2001β2024
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) β area in Africa is 6,438 1000 ha, measured in 2024. That is the highest value across all 24 years on record.
That represents a change of up 0.5% on the previous year and up 5.8% over ten years.
Over the whole period, artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area in Africa peaked at 6,438 1000 ha in 2024 and was at its lowest, 5,778 1000 ha, in 2001.
Africa ranks 6th of 44 regions on this measure, in the top quarter.
The long-run direction has been consistently rising across the 24 years of available data.
Averages by decade
| Decade | Average | Lowest | Highest | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000s | 5,861 1000 ha | 5,778 1000 ha | 5,941 1000 ha | 9 |
| 2010s | 6,110 1000 ha | 5,966 1000 ha | 6,256 1000 ha | 10 |
| 2020s | 6,365 1000 ha | 6,287 1000 ha | 6,438 1000 ha | 5 |
Countries ranked near Africa
More environment data for Africa
- Temperature change 1.32 Β°C (2025)
- Standard Deviation 0.213 Β°C (2025)
- Other industrial roundwood β Production 27.50 million m3 (2024)
- Industrial roundwood β Export value 652,409 1000 USD (2024)
- Industrial roundwood, non-coniferous β Production 66.41 million m3 (2024)
- Sawlogs and veneer logs β Production 39.12 million m3 (2024)
- Wood charcoal β Production 38.75 million t (2024)
- Other industrial roundwood, non-coniferous (production) β Production 26.92 million m3 (2024)
- Value Added (Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing) β Annual growth US$ -1.32 % (2024)
- Value Added (Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing) β Share of GDP US$ 15.37 % (2024)
Frequently asked questions
- What is artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area in Africa?
- Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area in Africa was 6,438 1000 ha in 2024, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
- What is the highest artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area recorded in Africa?
- The highest recorded value was 6,438 1000 ha in 2024.
- What is the lowest artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area recorded in Africa?
- The lowest recorded value was 5,778 1000 ha in 2001.
- How does Africa rank for artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area?
- Africa ranks 6th out of 44 regions with data for 2024.
- Is artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) β area rising or falling in Africa?
- Over the last ten years it is up 5.8%. 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) β Area from MODIS. Statizoid updates them automatically from the source API.
Download this data
CSV Β· JSON β 24 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 UniversitΓ© 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.