Abstract:
Rwanda is a small landlocked African country located in Central
Africa. It borders Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania
and Burundi. It has a total area of 26,338 square kilometers comprising
24,668 square kilometers of land and 1,670 square kilometers of
water. Most of the country is savanna grassland with the population
predominantly rural. It is a country characterized with a high population
density. This paper centers on the application of the logistic
growth model to model the population growth of Rwanda using data
from the years 1980 to 2008 (inclusive). We have determined the carrying
capacity and the vital coefficients governing the population growth
of Rwanda. The results from the predictions show that the carrying capacity
for the population of Rwanda is 77208025.64 and that the vital
coefficients a and b are 0.03 and 3.88566419×10−10 , respectively. Thus
the population growth rate of Rwanda, according to this model, is 3%
per annum. This approximated population growth rate compares well
with statistically predicted values in literature. Based on this modelwe also predict that the population of Rwanda will be 38604012.82 in
the year 2067. The data used were collected from National Institute
of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) and International Data Base (IDB). It
was analyzed using MATLAB and Statistical Package for Social Science
(SPSS) and it accurately fitted the logistic growth curve.