Landlocked countries in Africa and their capitals

Landlocked countries in Africa and their capitals

How much do you know about landlocked countries in Africa? If your knowledge on this topic is quite limited, then let us help you out. Learn more about African landlocked countries, their capitals and other interesting facts.

Landlocked countries in Africa and their capitals

What are landlocked countries?

Before we jump into our list of landlocked countries of Africa, let’s define what a landlocked country actually is. Even if you do not really know the exact meaning of this term, it is easy to understand just from the word itself that we are talking about a country that is entirely locked by land on all sides. However, it is also important to note that landlocked countries can actually have coastlines, but only the ones that lie on closed seas.

Being landlocked is not a great thing for any country, as it creates economic and political handicaps due to the absence of access to high seas. For ages, countries have fought tooth and nail for their access to open waters, which has resulted in many violent conflicts. Nevertheless, not all of them have been able to change their situation.

Read also

These countries are happy to give you their visas in Nigeria

At the moment, there are 49 landlocked countries in the world (if you include partially recognised states), and 16 out of those are African countries. Let’s talk about each of them in a little bit more detail.

List of African countries that are landlocked

Landlocked countries in Africa

Photo: quora.com

This is how we are going to do this: we are going to list the countries, their location in Africa, their capitals, area and population, as well as the countries that surround them and ‘lock them in’. We are going to list the landlocked countries in alphabetical order, so that you can easily find what you are looking for. Without further ado, here are all of the African landlocked countries:

Botswana

Botswana

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Southern Africa
  • Capital: Gaborone
  • Area: 581,730 square km
  • Population: 2,250,260
  • Landlocked by: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Ouagadougou
  • Area: 274,200 square km
  • Population: 20,107,509
  • Landlocked by: Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Mali and Togo

Read also

Can you find Cuba on the map?

Burundi

Burundi

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Bujumbura
  • Area: 27,834 square km
  • Population: 10,524,117
  • Landlocked by: Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda

Central African Republic

Central African Republic

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Bangui
  • Area: 622,984 square km
  • Population: 4,594,621
  • Landlocked by: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, South Sudan and Sudan

Chad

Chad!

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: N'Djamena
  • Area: 1,284,000 square km
  • Population: 13,670,084
  • Landlocked by: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan

Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Addis Ababa
  • Area: 1,104,300 square km
  • Population: 102,403,196
  • Landlocked by: Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan

Lesotho

Lesotho

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Southern Africa
  • Capital: Maseru
  • Area: 30,355 square km
  • Population: 2,203,821
  • Landlocked by: South Africa

Malawi

Malawi

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Southeast Africa
  • Capital: Lilongwe
  • Area: 118,484 square km
  • Population: 18,091,575
  • Landlocked by: Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia

Mali

Mali!

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Bamako
  • Area: 1,240,192 square km
  • Population: 14,517,176
  • Landlocked by: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal

Read also

Top facts about the territorial organization of Nigeria

Niger

Niger

Photo: wikipedia.org

READ ALSO: West African countries and their capitals

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Niamey
  • Area: 1,267,000 square km
  • Population: 20,672,987
  • Landlocked by: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali and Nigeria

Rwanda

Rwanda

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Kigali
  • Area: 26,338 square km
  • Population: 11,262,564
  • Landlocked by: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda

South Sudan

South Sudan

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Juba
  • Area: 619,745 square km
  • Population: 12,230,730
  • Landlocked by: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda

Swaziland

Swaziland

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Southern Africa
  • Capital: Lobamba (legislative) / Mbabane (executive)
  • Area: 17,364 square km
  • Population: 1,343,098
  • Landlocked by: Mozambique and South Africa

Uganda

Uganda

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Central Africa
  • Capital: Kampala
  • Area: 241,038 square km
  • Population: 41,487,965
  • Landlocked by: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania

Zambia

Zambia

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Southern Africa
  • Capital: Lusaka
  • Area: 752,618 square km
  • Population: 16,591,390
  • Landlocked by: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe

Read also

What are the best textile companies in Lagos?

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Photo: wikipedia.org

  • Location: Southern Africa
  • Capital: Harare
  • Area: 390,757 square km
  • Population: 16,150,362
  • Landlocked by: Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia

As you can see, landlocked countries can be big and small, and they can be landlocked by lots of countries or even just one. We hope you have been able to learn something new about African countries.

READ ALSO: Which country is the richest in Africa?

Source: Legit.ng

Authors:
Adrianna Simwa avatar

Adrianna Simwa (Lifestyle writer) Adrianna Simwa is a content writer at Legit.ng where she has worked since mid-2022. She has written for many periodicals on a variety of subjects, including news, celebrities, and lifestyle, for more than three years. She has worked for The Hoth, The Standard Group and Triple P Media. Adrianna graduated from Nairobi University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in 2020. In 2023, Simwa finished the AFP course on Digital Investigation Techniques. You can reach her through her email: adriannasimwa@gmail.com