Africa Population Distribution Database and Administrative Units from UNEP/GRID-Sioux Falls

The African administrative boundaries and population database is part of an ongoing effort to improve global, spatially referenced demographic data holdings. Such databases are useful for a variety of applications including strategic-level agricultural research and applications in the analysis of the human dimensions of global change This documentation describes the third version of a database of administrative units with associated population figures for Africa. The first version was compiled for UNEP's Global Desertification Atlas (UNEP 1992, Deichmann and Eklundh 1991), while the second version represented an update and expansion of this first product (Deichmann 1994, WRI 1995). The work discussed in the following paragraphs is also related to NCGIA activities to produce a global database of subnational population estimates (Tobler et al. 1995), and an improved database for the Asian continent (Deichmann 1996a). The new version for Africa provides considerably more detail: more than 4700 administrative units, compared to about 800 in the first and 2200 in the second version. In addition, for each of these units a population estimate was compiled for 1960, 70, 80 and 90 which provides an indication of past population dynamics in Africa.