Country Information
| Official Name: | Guinea-Bissau |
| Capital: | Bissau |
| Area: | 36,125 km² |
| Languages: | Portuguese |
| Independence: | 1973-09-24 |
| Leader: | Umaro Sissoco Embaló |
About Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau is located in the bulge of the African continent that arcs from the Sahel southward to the Gulf of Guinea. Its capital is Bissau, and it covers roughly 36,125 square kilometres. The population of about 2.1 million makes it one of 16 countries that make up West Africa. Guinea-Bissau is one of the smaller members of the West Africa group by population. The country marks its modern statehood from 1973.
West Africa is the most populous of Africa's five regions and one of its most linguistically diverse — a colonial legacy of French and English coexists with hundreds of indigenous languages. Many West African countries are members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and several share the West African CFA franc as a common currency. Agriculture, mining, and services anchor most economies, with Nigeria as the dominant single economy by both population and GDP. Within that setting, The working official language is portuguese, and the legal-tender currency is the West African CFA franc (XOF) (see Africa's currency arrangements).
The figures above are sourced from World Bank, IMF, UN agency and national statistics-office releases. Reported nominal GDP for Guinea-Bissau is about US$2 billion. Population growth is currently estimated at about 2.4% per year, which influences how quickly the labour force, school cohorts and urban demand shift over a decade. The longer-form note on what growth rate hides is on reading African demographic data. At an urbanisation rate of about 45%, Guinea-Bissau is transitioning toward an urban majority. Life expectancy at birth is reported at 59.7 years, and the adult literacy rate at about 46% — figures that summarise decades of investment in health systems and basic education.
How to read these figures
Country indicators on Africa Center are point-in-time estimates that are revised when new census or survey data is published. GDP is reported here as nominal US dollars at current exchange rates, which is the format most widely used by international institutions for cross-country comparison; for the difference between this and the purchasing-power-parity variant, and why GDP rankings reorder between releases, see reading African economic data. Per-capita figures divide GDP by population and are most useful when read alongside the absolute total. Definitions for every indicator are in the glossary; the rules we follow when sources disagree are written up in the methodology.
For the full regional context — neighbouring economies, shared languages, regional organisations — see the West Africa overview. To compare Guinea-Bissau with other countries on the continent, browse the full country directory or open the interactive map.
Last reviewed: 28 April 2026. Figures are revised when underlying source organisations publish new releases.