Geography of Rwanda
Senior 4 · English
Geography of Rwanda
Lesson 2 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
On average, 503 people live on every square kilometre of Rwanda, according to the 2022 census. The same hectare of land is expected to feed families, house them, grow trees, hold water and keep its soil on the hillside. In the first half of this lesson you listen to a radio talk about how the country tries to grow without wearing out its land. In the second half you turn census and economic figures into a short spoken presentation, a task that appears in interviews, debates and every kind of report you will give after school.
| Example | The problem | What was done | Result or evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Plastic | |||
| 2. Wetlands | |||
| 3. Trees |
Important
Listening script: for a teacher or classmate to read aloud
Only the reader opens the script; everyone else keeps it closed until after the third listening. Read at a steady radio pace, about three and a half minutes in all. The presenter, Keza, and the guest, Mr Ndayisaba, are imagined; the facts come from the sources listed at the end of the lesson.
Keza: Good afternoon and welcome to Our Land Tomorrow. Many listeners have written in with the same question: can a country grow fast and still look after its environment? My guest works in environmental education in Kicukiro. Mr Ndayisaba, welcome.
Mr Ndayisaba: Thank you, Keza. Let me start with a number from the 2022 census: five hundred and three. That is how many people live, on average, on every square kilometre of Rwanda. Our land has to feed us, house us, give us wood and water, and hold the soil on the hills, all at once. So in Rwanda the environment is not a luxury. It is, quite literally, the ground we stand on.
Keza: With so many pressures, where do you begin?
Mr Ndayisaba: I'll give you three examples, and I'll start with the one every visitor notices: plastic. In 2008 Rwanda passed a law banning polythene bags. Then a new law, Law N° 17 of 2019, went further. It prohibits the manufacture, import, use and sale of plastic carry bags and of single-use plastic items, that is, plastic made to be used once and thrown away. Shoppers now carry paper bags, cloth bags or baskets. I won't pretend it was easy. Some traders found the alternatives expensive at first, and some bags are still smuggled across the borders. But the streets are visibly cleaner, and carrying your own bag is now simply normal.
Keza: And your second example?
Mr Ndayisaba: Wetlands. A wetland works like a sponge: it soaks up heavy rain, slows floods down and cleans dirty water. As Kigali grew, its wetlands came under great pressure. At Nyandungu, in Kigali, a wetland had been damaged by people building and farming on it and by pollution from sewage, and it was adding to flooding further downstream. It has been restored. About seventeen thousand trees of fifty-five native species were planted, ponds were created to catch rainwater, and on 8 July 2022 the site opened to the public as the Nyandungu Urban Wetland Eco-Tourism Park: about a hundred and twenty-one hectares, with ten kilometres of walkways and bike lanes. The work created around four thousand green jobs.
Keza: And the third?
Mr Ndayisaba: Trees. The Ministry of Environment puts Rwanda's forest cover at about thirty point four per cent of the land, and more than half of that is planted forest rather than natural forest. Every tree on a slope helps to hold the soil in place, and a tree you plant at school this year will still be growing when you have children of your own.
Keza: Some listeners say that protecting the environment slows development down. What do you tell them?
Mr Ndayisaba: I tell them the opposite is true. Soil that washes into a river cannot grow beans. A flooded road cannot carry goods to market. Land is the one thing we cannot make more of, so looking after it is development. And if you are a student listening, you do not need to wait for a law. Refuse a plastic item you don't need. Plant a tree on your school compound and water it through the dry season. These are small acts, but when five hundred and three people on every square kilometre do small acts, they add up to a great deal.
Keza: Mr Ndayisaba, thank you.
Which title sums up the talk best? Give one reason.
Definition
Words from the talk and the charts
Figures persuade only when listeners can hold them in their heads. A good speaker does three things with every number: rounds it, compares it, and says what it means. Practise with the real figures below, from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR).
| Province | Population, 2022 | Share of total | People per km² |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of Kigali | 1,745,555 | 13.2% | 2,401 |
| Southern Province | 3,002,699 | 22.7% | 547 |
| Western Province | 2,896,484 | 21.9% | 693 |
| Northern Province | 2,038,511 | 15.4% | 663 |
| Eastern Province | 3,563,145 | 26.9% | 433 |
| Rwanda | 13,246,394 | 100% | 503 |
Other figures from the same census: 27.9% of the population lived in urban areas and 72.1% in rural areas; the population grew by 2.3% a year between 2012 and 2022; life expectancy at birth was 69.6 years; and young people aged 16 to 30 made up 27.1% of the population.
In 2025 the economy grew by 9.4%, and GDP at current prices was about 23,387 billion Rwandan francs, according to NISR.
| Purpose | Useful language | Example with real figures |
|---|---|---|
| Rounding | about, roughly, around, just over, just under, nearly, almost | Rwanda has just over 13.2 million people. |
| Proportions | a quarter, a third, half, three-quarters, one in five, the majority, a minority | Just over a quarter of Rwandans live in towns; nearly three-quarters live in rural areas. |
| Comparing | twice as … as, nearly five times, much higher than, slightly lower than | Kigali's density is nearly five times the national average. |
| Ranking | the most / least populous, the largest, followed by, second only to | The East is the most populous province, followed by the South. |
| Meaning | This suggests that … · What this means is … · This matters because … | This suggests that the most populous province is not the most crowded. |
Saying numbers aloud (British English): 503 = five hundred and three; 13.2 million = thirteen point two million; 27.9% = twenty-seven point nine per cent; 2,401 = two thousand, four hundred and one.
Worked example
A one-minute presentation on the bar chart, with its moves labelled
Good morning. This chart shows how Rwanda's 13.2 million people were spread across the provinces at the 2022 census. [introduce the chart and its source] The Eastern Province is the most populous, with about 3.6 million people, or just over a quarter of the total. It is followed by the Southern and Western Provinces, with roughly 3.0 and 2.9 million. The City of Kigali has the fewest people, about 1.7 million. [round and rank] But the chart hides something. Kigali is by far the smallest province in area, so it is by far the most crowded: about 2,400 people per square kilometre, nearly five times the national average of 503. The Eastern Province, the most populous, is the least crowded, at 433, because it is also the largest in area. [compare, using a second source of figures] This suggests that the most populous province is not the most crowded one, and that planners need both figures. Thank you. [say what it means, then close]
Check the arithmetic before you speak: 2,401 ÷ 503 ≈ 4.8, so "nearly five times" is honest; "five times" would not be.
Tip
Round, compare, mean. Never read a figure as it is printed. Say "just over 13 million", not "thirteen million, two hundred and forty-six thousand, three hundred and ninety-four". Then put it next to another figure, and finish with one sentence that begins This suggests that …
Warning
Rwanda's plastic bags ban helps make it one of the cleanest countries in Africa, CGTN Africa (about 3 minutes, 2023). Compare the report with Mr Ndayisaba's first example: note one detail that both mention and one that only the report gives.
Practice
Key points
Sources and credits
Quick check
In the radio talk, why does Mr Ndayisaba open with the number 503?
