Finding Historical Statistics on African Colonies: Home

1. Almost every African country was founded within the past fifty years. This means -- for historical research -- you must build up a synonym set of colonial names and national names for your country. This can be obvious -- Congo OR Zaire -- but you must accommodate foreign-language names where appropriate -- Cameroon OR Cameroun OR Kamerun -- and the complicated genealogy of very old colonies -- Nigeria OR "Niger Coast" OR "Oil Rivers" OR "Lagos Colony". Consider this one:

Quiz question: What African countries were founded more than fifty years ago?

2. Colonial-era statistics are hard to locate. You should start with the Mitchell statistical compendium mentioned in class by Nick Okrent. Take care to check Mitchell's notes for the next step. Another GREAT bibliographic source is:

and also see the Penn Library research guide on Health and Society in Africa, URL:

3. A stupid Franklin searching tip for colonial-era publications. You're looking for old books and periodicals, right? So when you've got a search result, change the sort order to "Pub date (old-new)."

4. Colonial-era statistics are often buried in handbooks and annual report-type publications. Depending on how and when we collected them, you will need to visit Van Pelt Reference, the Van Pelt LC AND Dewey stacks, or the University Museum Library, or request volumes from LIBRA. And remember: French books usually have their tables of contents at the end.

5. If Mitchell doesn't satisfy you, go deeper. You will want to examine:

Most colonial-agency statistical publications do NOT provide social and economic data: they're interested in commerce, specifically exports. On the other hand, some British colonies produced their own "handbooks", which usually contain directory-like information but sometimes have statistical information or discussion of social and economic topics. Try a Franklin keyword expert search: Follow up on your searching, but be prepared for frustration.

6. Some quick, good hits. For French colonial Africa, take a look at these statistical abstracts:

British colonies issued annual statistical abstracts, called Blue Books. Our Blue Book holdings at present are strong but scattered among the Van Pelt stacks, LIBRA, and microfilm reels in Van Pelt Microtext. Don't bother trying this keyword expert search in Franklin:

Instead, consult the research guide, Blue Books for Colonial British Africa in the Penn Libraries.

The Blue Books were considered so opaque that Parliament required Annual Reports to explain them. These Annual Reports are found in a couple different ways.

Stanford University Libraries prepared a finding aid for the annual reports of African colonies appearing in the series Colonial Reports-Annual for 1920-1938, covering reports numbered 1072 through 1936. The Stanford finding aid appears to have been suppressed in 2015 but lives on in the Internet Archive.

Use the Stanford table below with the HathiTrust digitized versions from the University of Illinois, covering report nos. 1555-1895 (published in 1930-1937), or retrieve specific printed reports by report number from LIBRA, covering nos. 1414-1936.

Colonial Reports: Ashanti 1920-1925/26

Colonial Reports: Basutoland 1920/21-1938

Colonial Reports: Bechuanaland 1920/21-38

Colonial Reports: Gambia 1920-1938

Colonial Reports: Gold Coast 1920-1938/39

Colonial Reports: Northern Territories of the Gold Coast 1919-1925/26

Colonial Reports: Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1920-1923, 1926, 1928-38

Colonial Reports: Mauritius 1920-1938

Colonial Reports: Nigeria 1920-1938

Colonial Reports: Northern Rhodesia 1924/25-1938

Colonial Reports: Nyasaland 1919/20-1938

Colonial Reports: Seychelles 1920-1924, 1926-1937

Colonial Reports: Sierra Leone 1920-1934, 1936-1938

Colonial Reports: Somaliland 1920-1937

Colonial Reports: Swaziland 1920/21, 1922-1938

Colonial Reports: Uganda Protectorate 1919/20-1938

Colonial Reports: Zanzibar Protectorate 1920-1938