Living in Cities in Sierra Leone: 1800 to Today (and Tomorrow)

Behind every data point on MYRIAD is the physical reality of human movement, tracing how generations have built their daily lives close together or far apart. In Sierra Leone, the share of the population living in urban areas tells a quiet story of change, mapping out the spaces where people have gathered to work, trade, and raise families across centuries. Urban living shapes the rhythm of a person's existence, dictating the distance to a market, the density of a neighborhood, and the collective pulse of a growing community.

The historical arc stretches steadily forward across the decades, recording a gradual shift from predominantly rural landscapes into increasingly concentrated urban centers. In the 1800s estimate, the proportion stood at 4 %, ticking upward through the 1810s estimate at 4.2 %, the 1820s estimate at 4.4 %, the 1830s estimate at 4.6 %, the 1840s estimate at 4.8 %, and reaching 5 % by the 1850s estimate. This slow progression continued through the 1860s estimate at 5.2 %, the 1870s estimate at 5.4 %, the 1880s estimate at 5.6 %, and the 1890s estimate at 5.8 %, before hitting 6 % in the 1900s estimate. The growth accelerated incrementally in the 1910s estimate at 7 %, the 1920s estimate at 8 %, the 1930s estimate at 9 %, and the 1940s estimate at 10 %. By the 1950s it reached 11 %, moving to 15 % in the 1960s, 19 % in the 1970s, 23 % in the 1980s, 27 % in the 1990s, 31 % in the 2000s, 36 % in the 2010s, and resting at 41 % in the 2020s, where it ranks #140 of 157 countries. Projections look toward a continuing transformation, anticipating the 2030s projection at 43 %, the 2040s projection at 45 %, the 2050s projection at 47 %, the 2060s projection at 49 %, the 2070s projection at 51 %, the 2080s projection at 53 %, the 2090s projection at 55 %, and the 2100s projection at 57 %.

For someone born into this trajectory, the surrounding environment of streets and buildings expands with every passing era, framing a life lived amidst shifting demographics and expanding cities. Whether experiencing the quiet rural expanses of earlier times or the denser urban neighborhoods of the present, your place in this statistical lineage connects you to a broader global tapestry of human settlement. Keep exploring other dimensions of this experience by looking into life expectancy, income, child mortality, schooling, and family size in Sierra Leone. Where do YOU rank among everyone ever born? →