Abu Dhabi population statistics revealed in new report

The population grew at an average rate of 9.5 per cent from 1960 to 2014, according to the statistics centre.

ABU DHABI // Newly-published statistics from Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi (Scad) show that the population of the emirate is 133 times what it was in 1960.

From that year until 2014, the population grew at an average rate of 9.5 per cent, which is one of the highest rates of growth in the world, state news agency Wam reported.

This data, from Scad’s recently updated publication Explore Abu Dhabi through Statistics, 2015, draws an intriguing picture of the emirate’s growth through numbers, said Butti Al Qubaisi, director-general of Scad.

Abu Dhabi emirate’s population reached 2,657,026 in mid-2014 – of whom 1,750,855 were males and 906,171 were females, according to preliminary estimates. Twenty per cent of the population comprises locals, the majority of whom live in Abu Dhabi city and Al Ain.

Abu Dhabi’s economy, meanwhile, grew at an estimated 2.2 per cent last year despite the collapse in oil prices, which the Scad reported credited to diversification efforts.

The emirate, the world’s eighth biggest producer of oil, said its gross domestic product (GDP) rose to Dh952.6 billion in 2014 from Dh931.7bn in 2013, when GDP rose 2.4 per cent.

As for education, the illiteracy rate among citizens dropped from 80.12 per cent in 1970 to 5.3 per cent in 2013, and from 89.85 per cent among female citizens 10 years and older in 1970 to 7.4 per cent in 2013.

Total enrolment in school increased almost 50-fold from 6,972 in the academic year 1969-1970, to 340,803 in 2013-2014, while the number of schools multiplied 20 times.