Chad

AfricaCapital city: N'DjamenaCapital metro: N'DjamenaPresident: Mahamat Déby
2026 population
20.0M
Rank #66 globally
Area
1.3M km² (496k sq mi)
Metros tracked
1
8% of population in metros
Composite score
0.8
Rank #195 globally

population: National annual projection (1 Jul 2026) · indicators as of 2026-09-05 · 1 metros tracked

🗺️ Geography1 metro

Chad metro footprint, shaded by composite tier.

Loading map…
1 polygons

Hover for rank, click to open the metro page. Boundaries derived from Overture Maps administrative divisions; metros without source coverage are omitted.

🏙️ 1 tracked metro
1 metros
#1547N'Djamena★ Capital▲ Largest
0.8
Chad
🗂️ Administrative subdivisions

23 entries listed under Chad across 2 types. Click any to see its metros and footprint.

23 total

Capital Districts (1)

📋 At a glance
Official languages
French, Arabic
Legislature
National Assembly
Demonym
Chadian
Time zone
UTC+01:00
Driving side
Right
Calling code
+235
Internet TLD
.td
ISO 3166
TD
Established
1960
Highest point
Emi Koussi (3,445 m (11,302 ft))
National anthem
La Tchadienne

Facts via Wikidata.

💹 Economy and developmentLow income
Human Dev. Index
#188 / 191
0.416
UNDP · 2023
GDP
#130 / 193
$21.5B
World Bank · 2025
GDP per capita
#178 / 193
$1.0k
World Bank · 2025
GDP/capita (PPP)
#176 / 190
$2.9k
World Bank · 2025
GNI/capita (Atlas)
#176 / 192
$970
World Bank · 2025
Life expectancy
#193 / 194
55.2 yrs
World Bank · 2024
Median age
15.4 yrs
UN WPP · 2023
Urban population
#177 / 194
28%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. growth
3.4%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. density
#177 / 193
15/km²
World Bank · 2023
Foreign-born
#81 / 193
6.3%
World Bank · 2024
Rule of law
#173 / 175
0.02
V-Dem · 2025
Gini index
#101 / 166
37.4
World Bank · 2022
Internet users
#190 / 193
13%
World Bank · 2024
Inflation
#4 / 185
-3.9%
World Bank · 2025
CO₂ per capita
#9 / 192
0.1 t
Global Carbon Budget · 2024
Renewable electricity
#157 / 186
5%
Ember · 2024

Ranks are among sovereign countries with data; ★ marks a top-5% finish. Sources: World Bank Open Data and Our World in Data (UNDP, UN WPP, V-Dem, Global Carbon Budget, Ember, Energy Institute; CC BY 4.0). Each card credits its originating body. Renewable share is of electricity generation, not of primary energy. Each figure is the most recent year available.

Alliances & Organisations3 full memberships

Political & Economic

Regional

Subregional

Full memberDashed border = Candidate / ApplicantItalic = Dialogue / Observer

🏛️ Leadership History11 leaders · click to expand

marks a leader associated with atrocities or defiance of law, systemic subversion of democratic institutions, or a criminal conviction. Convictions arising from political persecution, and annulled convictions, are excluded. denotes a monarch. These are editorial designations, applied per entry rather than derived automatically.

Mahamat Déby✦ Current

2024Present

President

Tenure: 2y 1m

Mahamat Déby

20212024

Chairman

Tenure: 3y 1m

Idriss Déby

19912021

President

Tenure: 30y 1m

Idriss Déby

19901991

Head of State

Tenure: 0y 2m

Hissène Habré

19821990

President

Tenure: 8y 5m

Goukouni Oueddei

19791982

President

Tenure: 2y 9m

Lol Mahamat Choua

19791979

President

Tenure: 0y 4m

Goukouni Oueddei

19791979

President

Tenure: 0y 1m

Félix Malloum

19751979

President

Tenure: 3y 11m

Noël Milarew Odingar

19751975

Head of State

Tenure: 0y 0m

François Tombalbaye

19601975

President

Tenure: 14y 8m
📈 Power over timeThe Power Atlas →
Today
Minor#187 · 0.0%
3%5%8%10%2000
Power (headline share)Latent (material mass)Recognised (standing)
Chad · share of world power, 1960–2026

The powerline is the headline share of world power, running from the state’s first ranked year (benchmark estimates with wide error bars before 1816). Latent power is material mass a state could mobilise (population, manpower, heavy industry). Recognised power is what the system actually treats it as (military spending, productive economy, reach, and status such as a Security Council seat or nuclear arsenal). When latent runs above recognised, a power is rising or under-rated; when recognised runs higher, it is punching above its weight or coasting on prestige. Material sub-indices run 1816 through 2016.

⚔️ Conflicts since 19455 interstate wars · click to expand
Combat deaths: 235,000–250,000
Combat deaths: 100+
Combat deaths: 8,500+
FROLINAT (from 1966)
Combat deaths:

Bold = principal belligerent. Source: Wikipedia, “List of interstate wars since 1945.”

👥 Population over time
Population 2023
19.3m
#66 in the world
Since 1800
13×
from 1.4m
Peak
2023
at its largest now
Share of world
0.24%
0.15% in 1800
5.4m10.8m16.2m21.6m18001850190019502000
Chad · people, 1800–2023 · dashed to 2026 is projected

Our World in Data population (CC BY): UN WPP 2024 from 1950, Gapminder v7 1800-1949, HYDE 3.3 earlier; today's borders. Figures above are as of 2023, the last year that is estimated rather than forecast. The dashed tail to 2026 is a UN WPP medium-variant projection. It is drawn because the line should reach the present, and drawn differently because it has not happened yet: no rank, peak or share on this page uses it. Before 1950 the series is reconstruction rather than contemporaneous statistics, which is worth knowing when a country’s peak sits back there. The current population shown elsewhere on this page comes from the workbook and is unchanged by this. Note that people and share of world can move in opposite directions. A country can grow steadily and still become a smaller part of humanity, which is what happened to almost every rich country after 1960.

👥 To 2100

The UN’s probabilistic projection for Chad: the median with its 80% and 95% bands, the UN’s own high, low and zero-migration scenarios beside it. Not this site’s model; the site reads it and says what it implies.

Peak on the median
after 2100
still growing at 2100
2050
38.9m
95% band 27.3m to 54.9m
2100
69.5m
95% band 29.5m to 270m
2100 against 2025
3.31×
median still rising in 2100
70.9m142m213m284m1950197520002025205020752100

Tap or drag across the chart to read any year: the estimate to 2023, then the UN median, its bands and the scenarios.

estimateUN median80% and 95% bandshigh and low fertilityzero migration

What drives it

Births, deaths and net migration on the UN medium path, with fertility, life expectancy and median age, every decade from 1950.

1950
119k born · 74k died · +237 net migration
TFR 6.06 · life expectancy 35.2 · median age 20.3
1960
140k born · 78k died · -672 net migration
TFR 6.25 · life expectancy 39.2 · median age 18.9
1970
175k born · 88k died · -9k net migration
TFR 6.53 · life expectancy 41.4 · median age 17.5
1980
224k born · 101k died · -210k net migration
TFR 6.91 · life expectancy 43.5 · median age 15.6
1990
315k born · 123k died · -59k net migration
TFR 7.22 · life expectancy 45.1 · median age 15.2
2000
439k born · 152k died · -4k net migration
TFR 7.25 · life expectancy 47.9 · median age 14.6
2010
603k born · 187k died · +10k net migration
TFR 6.99 · life expectancy 50.1 · median age 14.6
2020
754k born · 212k died · +37k net migration
TFR 6.35 · life expectancy 53.1 · median age 14.9
Show all 16 decades
2030
945k born · 254k died · -9k net migration
TFR 5.44 · life expectancy 56.2 · median age 16.0
2040
1.0m born · 305k died · -25k net migration
TFR 4.55 · life expectancy 57.7 · median age 17.5
2050
1.2m born · 366k died · -12k net migration
TFR 3.85 · life expectancy 59.2 · median age 19.8
2060
1.2m born · 436k died · +5k net migration
TFR 3.32 · life expectancy 60.6 · median age 22.1
2070
1.2m born · 515k died · -20k net migration
TFR 2.92 · life expectancy 61.9 · median age 24.5
2080
1.2m born · 607k died · -10k net migration
TFR 2.64 · life expectancy 63.0 · median age 27.0
2090
1.2m born · 703k died · +4k net migration
TFR 2.42 · life expectancy 64.2 · median age 29.4
2100
1.1m born · 805k died · -12k net migration
TFR 2.27 · life expectancy 65.3 · median age 31.7

Every country to 2100 →

Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2024. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Estimates to 2023; projections 2024 to 2100, medium variant and probabilistic intervals. The UN revises every two years; this is the WPP 2024 revision.

🏆 National Teams

Chad on the international stage. Click a card for the full record.