Cairo, Feb 11, 2020 – Egypt’s population has passed 100 million, its statistics agency said Tuesday, highlighting the threat of overpopulation in a poverty-stricken country where many live in crowded megacities. A counter installed atop the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) ticked over into nine digits for the first time, the agency said. “Apart from the physical problems of population density, the social problems are compounded,” Heba El Laithy, a Cairo University economics professor who has worked with CAPMAS, told AFP. As with the majority of Arab countries, Egypt has a youthful population with just over 60 percent under the age of 30. Most Egyptians live on a stretch of arable land along the River Nile that comprises eight percent of Egypt’s territory.

Source: The North Africa Journal February 12, 2020 15:56 UTC