Population
With about 20 million inhabitants, Cameroon is one of the most populous African naton state. The overall population density is 33 persons per sq km (87 per sq mi). The urban population has grown at a rate of 4.9 percent annually and now represents 44.7 percent of the total population. The remainder of the population lives in rural environments. More than three-fifths of Cameroonians live in the south where the capital, Yaounde, and the leading commercial city, Douala, are. Although Yaounde is Cameroon's capital, Douala is the largest city, main seaport, and main industrial as well as commercial center.
Ethnicity
There are an estimated 250 ethnic groups in Cameroon from five large regional-cultural groups. The largest of these broad groups are the Western Highlanders (or Grassfielders), who include the Bamileke, the Bamoun and many other smaller groups in the northwest, whose total is estimated at 38 percent of the population.
The coastal tropical forest groups, including the Bassa, Douala and their smaller subdivisions in the southwest, are estimated to comprise 12 percent of the population.
The southern tropical forest groups, including the Beti, Bulu, Fang (subgroups of the Beti) and the Pygmies (officially called the Bakas), together make up 18 percent of the population.
The other two main groupings are in the northern part of the country. The predominately Islamic people of the northern semi-arid region (the Sahel) and the central highlands, including the Fulani, also know as the Peule, make up 14 percent of the population. Finally, people of the northern desert and the central highlands (a non-Islamic group, the Kirdi and recently turned Islamic groups) represent 18 percent of the population.
Of all Cameroon's ethnic groups, the largest is the Bamileke in the west, then the Fulani/Kirdi in the north, and the Beti, also known as the Pahouin, in the south. The population of Cameroon is generally divided along these boundaries into these ethnic groups. The Bamileke form a loose agglomeration of Bantu-speaking tribal groups that dominate the cultural and economic life of western Cameroon.
In the north and extreme north are the Fulani Muslim sultanates. They are similar in structure to those sultanates of Northern Nigeria. These Fulani are the descendants of Sudanese Muslims who conquered the region in the 19th century. While the Fulani only represent about 14 percent of the Cameroonian population, they nonetheless dominate their non-Muslim neighbors, the Kirdi who number around 18 percent the total population.
The Kirdi are mountain dwellers living in the Mandara range. The term Kirdi, in Fulfulde (the language of the Fulani) means pagan and is used to collectively describe non-Muslim native peoples driven into the highlands by Fulani expansion.
The oldest indigenous people of Cameroon are the so-called Pygmies, the Baka, who still depend on hunting and fishing in the remote southwest forests.
About 14,000 non-Africans, including more than 6,000 French and 1,000 American citizens, reside in Cameroon
Religion
Over 40 percent of the population of Cameroon observes one or more indigenous religions that can be described as a combination of local practices and some teachings of Christianity. Christian movements (40 percent) of various denominations, including independent Christian sects, are common in the southwest of Cameroon and along the coast. This is mainly due to the intensive influence of missionaries in the early 20th century. Muslims (20 percent) maintain a significant minority share of the population.
Christian groups are common in the south and the west. The south and east are mainly populated by traditional African religions. Muslims and the indigenous-religion or recently Islamized Kirdi are concentrated in the north. Roman Catholicism is the chief religion around the French-speaking political capital city of Yaounde and the commercial capital Douala. Protestant groups predominate toward the west and the north. Among the Christian denominations in Cameroon are Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Presbyterians, and Jehovah's Witness. Greek Orthodox, Lebanese and Jewish communities reside in both Yaounde and Douala.
Language
Although there are at least 250 distinct languages and dialects spoken in Cameroon, English and French are the two official languages. This makes Cameroon unique in Africa. Cameroon's bilingualism stems from its colonial past, when both the French and the British ruled separate regions of what is now Cameroon. Both regions were joined right after independence.
While the government supports both languages, French is more dominant, used by approximately 80 percent of the population. It is the recommended language for use in Yaounde and Douala. There are few Anglophones in positions of power in Cameroon. Often, the minority Anglophone community complains of being treated as second-class citizens by the Francophones. Cameroon's English speaking minority is mainly concentrated in the west, near the Nigerian border.
Fang, Bamileke, Ewando (Beti dialect), Duala and dialects of Duala and other indigenous languages are the primary languages spoken in the south and southwest. Sudanic languages such as Fufulde, Hausa and Arabic and Afroasiatic languages are widely spoken in the north. However, Pidgin English, a Creole that developed over time as a trade language along the littoral from the Slave Coast to the Gold Coast - names dating from the early colonial period - is the most widely spoken tongue in the southwest and the west. Pidgin seems to transcend Anglophone-Francophone boundaries and can be heard in the markets of Douala and Yaounde. Although the government, through the department of education, has sought to curb it in the elementary schools, Pidgin still seems to permeate crossroads communities as a method of communication between the different groups living in Cameroon.
Education, Health, and Welfare
An estimated 68 percent of the population, ages 15 and older, are literate , according to recent estimates. However, this average rate obfuscates gender differences. The male literacy rate is 77 percent while the female rate is 59 percent. Cameroonians have an average life expectancy at birth of 53 years of age (52 years for males, 54 years for females). The infant mortality rate is 64.57 deaths per1,000 live births. Note that 3.7 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures in this country.
The prevalence of HIV/AIDs in Cameroon is high; indeed, the prevalence of HIV/AIDs among the adult population is 5.3 percent. The risk of other infectious diseases in this country is very high. Food or waterborne diseases include bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases include malaria and yellow fever; water contact diseases include schistosomiasis; respiratory diseases include meningococcal meningitis; animal contact diseases include rabies. Note that 5.6 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country.
Human Development
One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI placed Cameroon in the medium category, at 131st place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief,
www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for list of research sources.