Editing Niamey (section)

==Demographics==
[[File:Niamey SPOT 1101.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Niamey seen from [[Spot Satellite]]]]
{{historical populations
|1977|242973
|1988|397437
|2001|707951
|2012|1026848
|source=<ref name="INS 2012" />}}

Niamey's population has grown rapidly since independence - the droughts of the early 1970s and 1980s, along with the economic crisis of the early 1980s, have propelled an exodus of rural inhabitants to Niger's largest city.<ref name="Statsoid"/> Under the military government of General [[Seyni Kountché]], there were strict controls on residency and the government would regularly round up and "deport" those without permits back to their villages.<ref name="Gilliard & Pédenon">{{Cite journal |last=Gilliard |first=Patrick |last2=Pédenon |first2=Laurent |date=October 1996 |title=Rues de Niamey, espace et territoires de la mendicité |url=https://polaf.hypotheses.org/files/2020/05/063051.pdf |format=PDF |journal=[[Politique Africaine]] |publisher=[[Éditions Karthala]] |volume=63}}</ref> The growing freedoms of the late 1980s and 1990s, along with the [[Tuareg rebellion (1990–1995)|Tuareg Rebellion]] of the 1990s and famine in the 2000s, have reinforced this process of internal migration, with large informal settlements appearing on the outskirts of the city. Noticeable in the city's centre since the 1980s are groups of poor, young, or handicapped beggars.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}} Within the richer or more trafficked neighbourhoods, these beggars have in fact formed a well-regulated hierarchical system in which beggars garner ''[[Sadaqah|sadaka]]'' according to cultural and religious norms.<ref name="Gilliard & Pédenon" />

In the 1990s, the capital district population growth rate was lower than the torrid national rate, suggesting large rural migration ([[urbanization]]) was negligible in Niger, there is an undercount, and/or the government's forced urban to rural deportations were effective.<ref name="Gilliard & Pédenon" />