Angola overview
Filed under Africa and more precisely Middle Africa, Angola is a sovereign state. Its full official name is Republic of Angola. Its seat of government is Luanda.
The population is about 37.9 million, placing it 40th of 249 by population — between Morocco above it and Ukraine below. Within Middle Africa alone it is the 3rd largest of 10 and the 2nd most populous.
The land area is 1,246,700 km², which ranks it 24th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Niger and just ahead of Mali. That makes it almost exactly the same size as Mali.
Angola and its neighbours, side by side
Angola has 4 land neighbours, and together they hold 139,954,313 people — about 3.7 times Angola's own population. Sharing a frontier with that much weight on the other side shapes trade, migration and language in ways the map alone does not show.
| Neighbour | Population | Area (km²) | vs Angola by area |
|---|---|---|---|
| DR Congo | 109,276,265 | 2,344,858 | 1.9× larger |
| Namibia | 3,030,131 | 825,615 | 1.5× smaller |
| Zambialandlocked | 21,314,956 | 752,612 | 1.7× smaller |
| Congo | 6,332,961 | 342,000 | 3.6× smaller |
By area the largest neighbour is DR Congo and the smallest is Congo; by population DR Congo is the heaviest presence on the border. Taken together the neighbours hold more people than Angola does, which is the usual situation for a country with several borders and rarely a comfortable one.
Angola at a glance
- Capital
- Luanda
- Population
- 37,885,849
- Area
- 1,246,700 km²
- Region
- Middle Africa, Africa
- Languages
- Portuguese
- Currency
- Angolan kwanza (AOA)
- Calling code
- +244
- Internet TLD
- .ao
- People per km²
- 30
Angola on the map
Its reference point sits at 12.5° south and 18.5° east, which puts it in the southern hemisphere, roughly 1,392 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.
Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Samoa, American Samoa and Wallis and Futuna.
Its land neighbours number 4: Congo, DR Congo, Zambia and Namibia. The largest of them by area is DR Congo, which is also the most populous. Together those neighbours hold about 140.0 million people.
It has both a coastline and land borders, which is the most common arrangement of all.
Where Angola is on the map
The map below is centred on Angola at roughly -12.50°, 18.50°. Pan and zoom to see how it sits against its surroundings — the shape of a country's borders explains a surprising amount about its history.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
How crowded Angola is, and what is spoken there
Spread across 1,246,700 km², that works out at about 30 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. The median across all 249 entries here is about 91 per square kilometre.
People from Angola are called Angolans.
Officially it is monolingual: Portuguese. Another 9 entries list Portuguese too — among them Brazil, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.
Against Africa as a whole it is the 12th most populous of 59 entries, and it accounts for 17% of everyone living in Middle Africa.
Money and language in Angola
The Angolan kwanza (AOA) is used only in Angola among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.
Language reaches wider still. Portuguese is listed for 10 entries here, Angola among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.
Also lists Portuguese among its languages:
Angola within Middle Africa
Zoom in from the world to Middle Africa and Angola sits 2nd of 10 by population and 3rd by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is DR Congo just above and Cameroon just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.
DR Congo is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Middle Africa has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.
How big is Angola, really?
Put next to every other entry on this site, Angola ranks 24th of 249 by area and 40th by population. That works out at 0.83% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 0.47% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.
For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Angola in the size ordering are Niger at 1,267,000 km² and Mali at 1,240,192 km², against Angola's 1,246,700 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.
Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Angola averages 30 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it thinly settled by global standards — 185th of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.
The practical details for Angola
Money there is the Angolan kwanza (Kz, AOA). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to Angola.
If a quiz asks for the capital of Angola, the answer is Luanda.
Websites there use the .ao domain. Calls from overseas start with +244. Its ISO codes are ao and AGO, which is what most databases and flag files use.
As a sovereign state it is among the 192 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.
Angola codes and abbreviations
Every country carries a small set of codes that quietly run the practical world — phone networks, web addresses, passports, luggage tags and dropdown menus. Here are Angola's, and what each one is actually for.
- Calling code+244
- Dial +244 after your international access code to reach a number in Angola.
- Internet domain.ao
- .ao is the country-code top-level domain, so a web address ending in it is registered to Angola.
- ISO two-letter codeao
- Used on vehicle plates, in currency pairs and in almost every dropdown list of countries.
- ISO three-letter codeAGO
- The form you will see on passports, at airports and in sports scoreboards.
- DemonymAngolan
- The correct word for a person from Angola, and for the adjective form.
Fun facts about Angola
- It lies about 1,392 km from the equator, in tropical latitudes.
- Ranked by land area, Angola is 24th out of the 249 countries and territories on this site.
- Within Middle Africa it is the 3rd largest of 10.
- In land area it is almost exactly the same size as Mali.
- Websites based there use the .ao domain.
- Population density works out at roughly 30 people per square kilometre.
- It shares land borders with 4 countries: Congo, DR Congo, Zambia and Namibia.
- Portuguese is official here and in 9 other entries worldwide.
Angola — frequently asked questions
- What is the capital of Angola?
- The capital of Angola is Luanda.
- What language is spoken in Angola?
- The official language of Angola is Portuguese. It is also official in 9 other entries on this list.
- Where is Angola located?
- Angola is in Middle Africa, part of Africa. Its reference coordinates are 12.5° south and 18.5° east, roughly 1,392 km from the equator in tropical latitudes.
- Is Angola a country?
- Yes. Angola is a sovereign state and one of the 192 UN members listed on this site.
- Which countries border Angola?
- Angola borders 4 countries: Congo, DR Congo, Zambia and Namibia. DR Congo is the largest of them by area.
- How big is Angola?
- Angola covers 1,246,700 km², ranking 24th of 249 by land area. That makes it almost exactly the same size as Mali.
- What currency does Angola use?
- Angola uses the Angolan kwanza, written Kz (currency code AOA). No other entry in this dataset uses it.
- What is the population of Angola?
- Angola has a population of about 37.9 million, which makes it the 40th most populous of the 249 countries and territories listed on this site. Morocco sits just above it and Ukraine just below.
