Contents

- General Information
- Geography and Environment
- Population and HIV/AIDS
- Economy
- Communications, Information, Science and Technology
- Chronology of History

Population and Society

The majority of the population is concentrated around the four major centers of the country - Gaborone, Serow-Palapye, Francistown and Selibe-Pikwe. Other major concentrations are around the Okavango Delta area (Maun). Nearly 50% of the population lives within 100 km of Gaborone. [1]

The History of Census Taking [1]
The 1904 census was completely voluntary. The administrators of Bechuanaland Protectorate knew little or nothing of the people living in the sparsely populated country. The census covered only the reserves; estimates were made for the other areas. Collected information included total numbers of adults and children, according to sex, as well as wagons, cattle, horses, sheep, donkeys and goats.

The 1911 census was carried out as part of the decennial census of the British Empire and was restricted to number of people, broad age groups (child/adult) and sex.

The questionnaire for the 1921 census did not arrive on time and was criticized for providing a minimum of information. Sometimes the papers were replaced by strings in which the census takers had tied knots to indicate the number of people.

The 1936 census was again not reliable. Compared with the 1921 census, the population had increased or decreased 500 times; other absurd results were, for instance, a sex ratio of 2.3, that means 230 men to 100 women!

The ambitious 1946 census was coordinated by Pretoria, using 49 questions. A large number of tables were published. Prof. E. Batson of the University of Cape Town conducted the 1956 census. On a sample basis, it used the tax registry as a frame. A household was defined as any person whose name appeared in the tax registry, together with his/her dependents and household associates who did not appear in the tax registry. The analysis took a long time and was never published.

The 1964 census was the first to be conducted house-to-house. It was mainly intended as a delimitation exercise in preparation for independence.

The successive censuses 1971, 1981 and 1991 were improvements of the 1964 census. One major change in the 1971 and 1981 censuses was the attempt to cover the nomadic population as well.

Population [1]: 1,611,021 (1999 est.) and 1,326,796 (census 1991)

Click here to view the population pyramid of the year 1991 and the main demographic indicators of the census years 1971, 1981, 1991 and 1999 estimates. [1]

Population density: 2.7 pers./km2 (1999)
Urban population: 45.7% (1991), 49.7% (1999)
Rural population: 54.3% (1991), 50.3% (1999)
Average household size: 4.8 persons (1991)

Table: Total population by census district in 1991 [1]

Table: Age structure and age distribution by broad age groups in 1971, 1981, and 1991. [1]

Dependency ratio: 1.13 in 1971; 1.10 in 1981; and 0.93 in 1991
Ratio of population under 15 plus population 65 and older to population aged 15-64:
1.13 in 1971; 1.10 in 1981; and 0.93 in 1991 [1]

Sex ratio (male/female), 1991 (calculated from table above):
Total population: 0.92
Under 15 years: 0.98
15-49 years: 0.87
49 years and over: 0.84

Social indicators [2]
Population below the poverty line (survey year 1985-86, international poverty lines)

population below 1 US$ a day: 33.3
poverty gap at 1 US$ a day: 12.5
population below 2 US$ a day: 61.4
poverty gap at 2 US$ a day: 30.7

Health [2]
Public expenditure on health: 2.7% of GDP (1990-98)
Access to improved water source: 70% of total population (1990-96)
Access to sanitation: 36% of total population and 91% of population in urban areas (1990-96)

Languages spoken: English (official), Setswana, Ikalnaga [1]

Literacy [1]
In 1988 the official minimum age of school entry was reduced from 7 to 6 years. Primary education is available to all, but is not compulsory. The system of nine years of basic education was changed from 7-3-2 to 7-2-3, i.e., 7 years of primary education, 2 years of junior secondary and 3 years of senior secondary. The 1991 census showed that there had been no significant changes in the tertiary education system since 1981. For census purposes, all colleges and institutions affiliated with the University of Botswana were recognized as institutions offering tertiary forms of education.

Public expenditure on education was 6.0% in 1980 and 8.6% of GNP in 1997. [2]

For more detailed information, see Tables:
Population aged 5 years and older by age, sex and school attendance [1]
and
Population aged 5 years and over by citizenship, administrative district, urban and rural, sex and school attendance [1]

Labor force and household income [1]
For the first time, the topic of household cash activities and cash recipients was carried out in 1991 to obtain information on sources of income, other than formal employment. They were classified into two broad headings, such as production activities (for instance, production of cash crops, raising livestock, hunting and fishing, running a store, and handicraft) and transfers (such as interests, pensions, and remittances).

The 1981 census showed that only 35% of males and 10% of females aged 12 years and over were employed in cash activities. The question was, in what manner a household subsidized its income, when none of its members were employed in cash activities. 15.5% of the households reported having sold cattle for cash, followed by sheep and goat (8.5%). Only 2.4% of the households sold maize and 3.5% sold sorghum/millet for cash. For the results of the 1991 census, see table below.

Table: Population aged 12 and over by residence and economic activity status. [2:E1]

In the 1995/96 Labour Force Survey, the number of persons aged 12 years and over was 950,793, out of which 443,933 were males and 506,860 were females. The population 12 years of age and over consisted of 528,108 (55.5%) economically-active (labor force, as it is commonly called) and 422,685 (44.5%) economically-inactive. An economically-inactive population consists of students, retired persons, sick persons, and houseworkers, while the economically-active consists of unemployed and employed. Amongst the economically-active population, 345,405 were employed, 28,789 under-employed and 316, 616 fully employed [5].

For more detailed information visit the Botswana Central Statistics Office web site .

More Tables:
Working population aged 12 and over (cash and non-cash earners) by sex, industry and occupation group in 1991. [1:Table E10)(CSV file)
and Currently Employed Persons by Industry, Region and Sex, 1995/96. [5:Table 1]

Internal migration [1]
The 1991 census provides data by age, sex, previous district of residence, migration status, migrant population by highest grade passed or completed, by economic activity, by occupation, by industry (specified as urban to urban, urban to rural, rural to urban, and non-migrants), and international emigration by reason for absence.

Table: Population by 5-year age group, sex and migration status (within and between district migration) in 1991 [1:Table F2]

Click here to view the Table Population by present and previous district of residence (migrants between districts) in 1991. [1:Table F1] (CSV file)

HIV/AIDS

Click here to view the Table HIV/AIDS Surveillance Data Base, 2000 by the U.S. Census Bureau (CSV file). The Sentinel Surveillance Survey database, after adjustment, is the basis of the PDE model input.

Please see the Botswana Executive Summary for a discussion of those data.

Table: Major causes of in-patient mortality by sex, 1997. [4:Table 5]

Ethnic groups [6]:
The population of Botswana is characterized as Batswana, independent of ethnic origin. The eight "tribal" Tswana groups are: Tawana, Ngwato, Kwena, Ngwaketse, Kgatla, Tlokwa, Malete, Rolong Others are: Khalagari, Tswapong, Birwa, Kalanga, Subiya, Khoesan (otherwise Basawara, Bushmen, etc.) White settlers: Afrikaners, English.

The "Enthnologue's Languages of the World, Languages of Botswana" provide unexplained statistics of numbers of language speakers.

Sources:
[1] Republic of Botswana. 1991. 1991 Population and Housing Census. Administrative/Technical Report and National Statistical Tables. Gaborone, Botswana: Central Statistics Office.

[2] The World Bank. 2000. World Development Report 2000/2001. Attacking Poverty. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. The complete report is available on-line: http://worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/

[3] Central Statistics Office: Demography and Tourism Statistics. Access date, Dec. 2000, http://www.cso.gov.bw/cso/demo_stats.html

4] Central Statistics Office: Health Statistics. Access date, Dec. 2000, http://www.4site.bw/cso/health_stats_p2.html

[5] Central Statistics Office: Labour Force Survey. Access date, Dec. 2000, http://www.4site.bw/cso/lfs_95-96.html

[6] Southern African Web Tourism Ring, botswana.com. Access date Dec. 2000, http://www.botswana.com/index.htm

[7] U.S. Census Bureau. June 2000 Release. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Database. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, International Projections, Center Population Division.
Or download the world wide database at: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/hivaidsw.html

- General Information
- Geography and Environment
- Population and HIV/AIDS
- Economy
- Communications, Information, and Science and Technology
- Chronology of History