Sierra Leone Population

Sierra Leone is still recovering demographically from a brutal civil war that ended in 2002 and the Ebola epidemic of 2014 to 2016. Life expectancy, long among the world's lowest, has been climbing steadily, while fertility remains high but is gradually falling. The combination keeps the population growing strongly for decades, with a peak not expected until the 2090s.

Sierra Leone is home to about 8.9 million people in 2026, the 102nd largest population of any country. Set in Western Africa, its demographic path this century turns on the balance of births, deaths and migration. It packs in roughly 125 people per square kilometre.

Growth continues for Sierra Leone until around 2093, the year its population is set to crest at about 16.0 million. From there a slow fall takes it to roughly 15.9 million by century's end.

The median age is set to climb from about 19 today to roughly 37 by 2100, even as life expectancy improves from about 62 years. For now it remains one of the world's youngest populations, with a large generation about to reach working age. That ageing slowly changes everything from the size of the workforce to the cost of care and pensions.

With about 3.70 births per woman, Sierra Leone still has one of the higher fertility rates in the world, driving fast expansion. Emigration adds a further drag, as departures outnumber arrivals year to year.

These figures follow the UN's medium variant, the most widely cited scenario. The low and high variants, driven mainly by differing fertility assumptions, fan out into a wide range by 2100, so treat each number as a central estimate rather than a precise forecast.