URBAN GROWTH IN WEST AFRICA

URBAN GROWTH IN WEST AFRICA

[SHS:GEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography

urbanisation

western africa

urban history

small towns

What do we know about urbanisation in Africa? The classification systems of urban/rural areas differ from one country to another. As a consequence, international comparisons of urbanisation indicators or historical analyses of urban growth are difficult to establish. Urbanisation is indeed increasing, but how and where exactly? More in metropolises or in small towns? How many urban agglomerations are there in each country? The first part of the Africapolis programme provides new evidence with respect to West Africa. The Africapolis programme was commissioned by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) to measure urbanisation and its patterns since the 1950s and project the results to 2020 more accurately than previous work on urbanisation in West Africa. It is part of a global research programme, e-Geopolis, supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) since 2008. The aim of e-Geopolis is to establish an international online database on the development of urbanisation, using a harmonised classification of rural/urban areas applied to all countries.

Denis, Eric

Moriconi-Ebrard, François

La Chronique du CEPED

2009-07-01

ENG

article in non peer-reviewed journal

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00410475

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/41/04/75/PDF/AFWenglish_Denis_Moriconi-Ebrard2009.pdf