Chess in Africa - Rated Players

In my first post on Africa, Chess in Africa - FIDE Members, I listed 54 African countries and indicated whether they were currently FIDE members or had been members a few years ago (2005). Of those 54 countries, the 24 with rated players on the January 2009 rating list are listed in the following table, along with a count of the rated players. The estimated current population is given for comparison.

Country	Fed	Ct	Pop.(m)
Egypt	EGY	381	81.7
South Africa	RSA	122	48.8
Algeria	ALG	96	33.8
Morocco	MAR	70	34.3
Tunisia	TUN	53	10.4
Libya	LBA	32	6.2
Nigeria	NGR	32	146.3
Botswana	BOT	31	1.8
Angola	ANG	30	12.5
Zimbabwe	ZIM	26	11.4
Zambia	ZAM	21	11.7
Uganda	UGA	20	31.4
Sudan	SUD	17	40.2
Kenya	KEN	15	38.0
Mauritius	MRI	11	1.3
Ethiopia	ETH	10	82.5
Seychelles	SEY	9	0.1
Namibia	NAM	8	2.1
Mozambique	MOZ	4	21.3
Somalia	SOM	4	9.6
Rwanda	RWA	4	10.2
Madagascar	MAD	3	20.0
Ghana	GHA	1	23.4
Sao Tome and Principe	STP	1	0.2

The 30 countries without rated players are noted in the following list, sorted by descending population. The data in parentheses shows the FIDE federation code (if known), whether the federation was listed as a member in 2005 and/or 2009, and the population: Democratic Republic of the Congo (2009 : 66.5m), Tanzania (TAN - 2005 : 40.2m), Cote d'Ivoire (CIV - 2005 : 20.2m), Cameroon (CAM - 2005/09 : 18.5m), Burkina Faso (15.3m), Malawi (MAW - 2005/09 : 13.9m), Niger (13.3m), Senegal (SEN - 2005 : 12.9m), Mali (MLI - 2005 : 12.3m), Chad (CHD - 2005 : 10.1m), Guinea (9.8m), Burundi (BUR - 2005/09 : 8.7m), Benin (BEN - 2005 : 8.5m), Sierra Leone (2009 : 6.3m), Togo (TOG - 2005 : 5.9m), Eritrea (5.5m), Central African Republic (4.4m), Republic of the Congo (3.9m), Mauritania (MTN - 2005 : 3.4m), Liberia (3.3m), Lesotho (2.1m), Gambia (GAM - 2005 : 1.7m), Gabon (2009 : 1.5m), Guinea-Bissau (1.5m), Swaziland (1.1m), Comoros (0.7m), Equitorial Guinea (0.6m), Djibouti (DJI - 2005 : 0.5m), Cape Verde (0.4m), Western Sahara (0.4m).

Credit:

• Populations: CIA - The World Factbook