Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Praia
- Region
- Africa, Western Africa
- Population
- 527,326 (2025)
- Area
- 4,033 km²
- Currency
- Cape Verdean escudo (CVE)
- Languages
- Portuguese
- Calling code
- +238
- Internet domain
- .cv
- ISO codes
- CV, CPV, 132
- Time zone
- UTC-1:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- #### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Cape Verde covers about 4,033 square kilometres. By area it ranks 178th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than French Polynesia and a little larger than South Georgia. It has no land border with any other country. Its centre lies at about 16° north, 24° west, in the northern hemisphere.
People
About 527,326 people live in Cape Verde (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 174th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure. On average there are 131 people to each square kilometre. About 78 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 76 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Portuguese. A person from Cape Verde is called Cape Verdian.
Money and economy
The currency is the Cape Verdean escudo (code CVE, symbol Esc). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 3.06 billion (2025), which is about US$ 5,796 for each person (2025).
Time
Cape Verde uses one time zone, UTC-1:00 (Atlantic/Cape Verde). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Praia | 137,868 |
| Mindelo | 69,013 |
| Espargos | 24,500 |
| Assomada | 21,297 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Western Africa
Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.