Irrigated land:
1,070 sq km (1998 est.)
Natural hazards:
severe droughts; devastating cyclones and floods occur in central
and southern provinces
Environment - current issues: a long civil war and recurrent drought in the hinterlands have resulted in increased migration of the population to urban and coastal areas with adverse environmental consequences; desertification; pollution of surface and coastal waters; elephant poaching for ivory is a problem
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:
the Zambezi flows through the north-central and most fertile part
of the country
People Mozambique
Population:
18,811,731
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the
effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower
life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower
population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of
population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected; the 1997
Mozambican census reported a population of 16,099,246 (July 2004
est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 43.6% (male 4,126,178; female 4,074,759)
15-64 years: 53.6% (male 4,944,416; female 5,145,167)
65 years and over: 2.8% (male 215,418; female 305,793) (2004 est.)
Median age:
total: 18.2 years
male: 17.8 years
female: 18.6 years (2004 est.)
Population growth rate:
1.22% (2004 est.)