Mangroves in Africa: the big picture
About 3 million hectares in 32 countries, with Nigeria, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau holding the most.
In Atlas, the Global Mangrove Watch v4.1 maps show about 2.98 million hectares of mangrove in 32 African countries in 2025.
Where it is (2025, hectares) Nigeria ≈ 811,000 · Mozambique ≈ 311,000 · Guinea-Bissau ≈ 295,000 · Madagascar ≈ 268,000 · Guinea ≈ 224,000 · Cameroon ≈ 208,000 · Gabon ≈ 194,000 · Senegal ≈ 162,000 · Sierra Leone ≈ 142,000 · Tanzania ≈ 113,000. These ten hold the vast majority of the continent's mangrove. Kenya has about 53,000 ha.
How it changed since 1996. For these countries the net change is a loss of about 1.2% (roughly 36,000 ha). The picture is uneven: Nigeria lost the most in hectares (about −32,000 ha), Mozambique and Madagascar also lost, while Senegal (about +40,000 ha) and Guinea-Bissau (about +17,000 ha) gained.
Reading it carefully. These are net totals of mapped area. A country can lose old forest in one place and gain new growth in another. Check the Mangrove Change page for each country and the methods articles for caveats.
Related reading
More in Knowledge Base
- How mangrove restoration works (and fails)
- Monitoring restoration: NDVI, plots and survival
- The mangrove species of East Africa
- Mangrove zonation: why different species grow in bands
- Organisations and community involvement in carbon projects
- Wildlife in and around mangroves
- Reading the sea-turtle tracking data
- West and Central African mangroves
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