Nigerian Cities not in Top 8 in List of Most Active African Cities on Twitter

In a new study by Portland Communications analysing the most active African cities on Twitter, Johannesburg topped the list and three other South African cities and Egypt’s capital Cairo were in the top five, with Nairobi in sixth place and Accra in eight, and no mention of any Nigerian cities.

Results were compiled by communications agency Portland, in a follow up to its 2012 study, who analysed geo-located tweets originating from Africa in the last three months of 2013 in a study called How Africa Tweets.

Johannesburg had 344,215 geo-located tweets, followed by Ekurhuleni (264,172) and Cairo (227,509). Durban (163,019) and Alexandria (159,534) make up the remainder of the top five most active cities.

 

Nairobi was the most active city in East Africa and the sixth most active on the continent, with 123,078 geo-located tweets, and Accra is the most active city in West Africa and the eight most active on the continent, with 78,575 geo-located tweets.

But there was no mention of Nigerian cities including Lagos or Abuja, despite the country having the largest population in Africa and an active internet community.

The highest volume of tweets in Africa were recorded on December 5, the day of Nelson Mandela's death, and the study also revealed that English, French and Arabic are the most common languages on Twitter in Africa, accounting for 75.5% of the total tweets analysed, with Zulu, Swahili, Afrikaans, Xhosa and Portuguese the next most commonly tweeted languages in the continent.

Twitter activity peaked in the evening around 9pm, and Tuesdays and Fridays are the most active tweeting days.

Mark Flanagan, Head of Digital for Portland, says: "As well as adding diversity of perspective on political and social issues, Africa's Twitter users are also contributing linguistic diversity. Twitter is now established on the continent as a source of information and a platform for conversation."