Guinea-Bissau Country Info - Africa

Description and Basic Information

Guinea-Bissau with its capital Bissau is located in Africa (Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean). It covers some 36,121 square kilometres (slightly less than three times the size of Connecticut) with 1,503,000 citizens. Portuguese and are the some of the languages spoken by the majority in Guinea-Bissau. It is charing borders with Senegal and Guinea.

Guinea-Bissau is a former Portuguese colony bordered by Senegal to the north and Guinea to the south and east. To go to the islands, there's a choice between cheap, but rather unsafe, canoas (pirogues) leaving from Porto Pidjiguiti or Porto de Bandim, and expensive modern boats owned by french fishing lodges on the Bijagos islands. As Guinea Bissau is very flat and there is virtually no traffic on the roads outside Bissau, it's a good country for cycling.

Pictures from Capital (Bissau)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Guinea-Bissau

The terrain offers mostly low coastal plain rising to savanna in east. The average density of population is about 41 per km². The climate in Guinea-Bissau can be described as tropical with generally hot and humid, monsoonal-type rainy season (June to November) with southwesterly winds, dry season (December to May) with northeasterly harmattan winds. Possible natural disasters include hot, dry, dusty harmattan haze may reduce visibility during dry season or brush fires.

To reach someone in Guinea-Bissau dial +245 prior to a number. There are 4,800 installed telephones. And there are 560,300 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".gw". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 9 regions/states in Guinea-Bissau we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Guinean population grew at a rate of 2% (or by 31,365 citizens). With 24,291 deaths and 55,656 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 2%. 0 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Guinea-Bissau: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.