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Bissau, capital of Guinea-Bissau: facts and figures

Bissau is the capital of Guinea-Bissau. It has about 490,000 residents, which makes it the 135th most populous capital of the 172 in DailyGeo's atlas, and it sits 22 m above sea level. Its nearest neighbouring capital is Banjul, 206 km away.

Key figures

FigureValue
CountryGuinea-Bissau
ContinentAfrica
City population490,000 residents
World rank by population135th of 172
Elevation22 m
Founded1687
Time zoneAfrica/Bissau
Coordinates11.86° N, 15.60° W
Country population2,249,515 residents
Country GDP2.5 billion US dollars
GDP per capita$1,124
Life expectancy64.3 years
Internet users29.8 %
Big Mac pricenot reported

Climate through the year

Bissau averages 26.5 °C from December to February and 26.7 °C from June to August. August is the coldest month of the year and June the warmest, and the city receives 1,489 mm of precipitation in an average year.

Monthly means from ERA5 reanalysis, 2015 to 2024.
MonthMean temperature
January26.1 °C
February26.9 °C
March27.4 °C
April27.3 °C
May27.4 °C
June27.7 °C
July26.4 °C
August26.0 °C
September26.4 °C
October27.4 °C
November27.6 °C
December26.5 °C

Nearest capitals

Distances are great-circle distances between city centres, which is what the Capitals game measures when it tells you how far a guess was from the answer. Banjul is the closest capital to Bissau.

CapitalCountryDistance
BanjulGambia206 km
ConakryGuinea331 km
DakarSenegal377 km
FreetownSierra Leone457 km
NouakchottMauritania693 km

How to remember it

Reading a figure once rarely fixes it in memory. Attach Bissau to a place and a number you already know: it is 206 km from Banjul, and it is the 135th largest capital in the atlas. Then practise retrieving it. DailyGeo Capitals gives you one mystery capital a day with distance, direction, language and population clues, the memorising method explains the review schedule, and the capitals index lists all 172.

To see how Guinea-Bissau compares with every other country on figures like these, the richest countries by GDP per capita ranks them on geopolitix, a country-ranking game by the same maker as DailyGeo.

Sources

  • City population and coordinates: DailyGeo's own game data, the same figures the Capitals game plays with. Population follows the urban area rather than the commune, which is why no density is quoted.
  • Temperature and rainfall: ten-year means (2015 to 2024) computed from ERA5 reanalysis, retrieved through Open-Meteo. Hersbach, H., et al. (2020). The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
  • Elevation: terrain height at the city's coordinates in the Copernicus DEM, read through Open-Meteo rather than taken from a curated claim.
  • Time zone: resolved from the same coordinates.
  • Country figures: the World Bank, latest reported year for each series: Country GDP, GDP per capita, Country population, Life expectancy, Internet users.
  • Founding date: Wikidata, earliest recorded founding claim.
  • This capital elsewhere: Wikipedia, UNdata, Wikidata.
  • Method and limits: How this data was collected explains how each figure was collected and what it does not cover.

The short answer

Bissau is the capital of Guinea-Bissau, in Africa, with about 490,000 residents, averaging 26.5 °C from December to February and 26.7 °C from June to August.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the capital of Guinea-Bissau?

Bissau is the capital of Guinea-Bissau. It has about 490,000 residents and lies in Africa.

How many people live in Bissau?

About 490,000, which ranks Bissau 135th of the 172 capitals in DailyGeo's atlas by city population.

What is the weather like in Bissau?

Bissau averages 26.5 °C from December to February and 26.7 °C from June to August, with 1,489 mm of precipitation a year. These are ten-year means from ERA5 reanalysis.

How expensive is Bissau?

GDP per capita in the country is $1,124, the latest year the World Bank reports.

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