URBAN GROWTH IN WEST AFRICA: From explosion to proliferation

ISSN 1157-4186What 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