Official name: The Federal Republic of Somalia
Capital and largest city: Mogadishu
Area: 637,657 sq km
Population: male: 6,546,312, female: 6,470,961 (2024 estimates)
Languages: Somali, Arabic
Life expectancy: 56.5 years (2024 estimate)
President: Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (since 2022)
Ethnicity/race: Somali 85%, Bantu and others 15%
Real GDP (purchasing power parity): $25.491 billion (2022 estimate)
Inflation: 1.5% (2017 estimate)
Unemployment: 19.29% (2022 estimate)
Arable land: 1.73%
Agriculture: bananas, sorghum, corn, coconuts, rice, sugarcane, mangoes, sesame seeds, beans; cattle, sheep, goats; fish
Labor force: 3.447 million (very few are skilled laborers); agriculture (mostly pastoral nomadism) 71%, industry and services 29%
Industries: a few light industries, including sugar refining, textiles, wireless communication
Natural resources: uranium and largely unexploited reserves of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt, natural gas, likely oil reserves.
Exports: $515.8 million (2012 est.): livestock, bananas, hides, fish, charcoal, scrap metal
Imports: $1.263 billion (2010 est.): manufactures, petroleum products, foodstuffs, construction materials, qat.
Major trading partners: UAE, Yemen, Oman, Djibouti, Kenya, India, China, Pakistan (2012).
Telephones: main lines in use: 100,000 (2012); mobile cellular: 658,000 (2012)
Broadcast media: 2 private TV stations rebroadcast Al-Jazeera and CNN; Somaliland has 1 government-operated TV station and Puntland has 1 private TV station; Radio Mogadishu operated by the transitional government; 1 SW and roughly 10 private FM radio stations broadcast in Mogadishu; several radio stations operate in central and southern regions; Somaliland has 1 government-operated radio station; Puntland has roughly a half dozen private radio stations; transmissions of at least 2 international broadcasters are available (2007).
Internet users: 106,000 (2009).
Railways: 0 km. Highways: total: 22,100 km; paved: 2,608 km; unpaved: 19,492 km (2000 est.)
Ports and harbors: Berbera, Kismaayo.
Airports: 61 (2013).
Created in 1960 as a merger of an Italian colony and a former British protectorate, Somalia descended into chaos after President Siad Barre’s military government was overthrown in 1991.
An internationally backed unity government established in 2000 struggled to maintain control as rival warlords tore the nation apart into clan-based fiefdoms, with separatist movements in the two comparatively tranquil northern regions of Puntland and Somaliland.
Puntland is a component of the federal Somali state, unlike Somaliland, which is attempting to gain international recognition as a distinct entity.
When a group of shariah courts took control of the nation’s capital, Mogadishu, and a large portion of the south in 2006, Ethiopian and eventually African Union forces intervened.
After a new internationally supported administration was imposed in 2012, Somalia has been slowly regaining peace, but Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabab militants continue to pose a threat to the government.
