Countries of Africa: native names of all 54 countries with ISO codes

Four scripts in the names of African countries

• ኢትዮጵያEthiopia Ethiopic
• مصرEgypt Arabic
• ⵍⵎⵖⵔⵉⴱMorocco Tifinagh
• MadagasikaraMadagascar Latin

Latin letters carry 56 of the 72 native forms in the table. French supplies the largest group, 19 forms from Bénin to Tchad, ahead of English with 15 and Portuguese with five, the languages most states kept for official use after independence. Arabic writes twelve forms, from Morocco and Algeria on the Mediterranean to Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and the Comoros.

Two scripts in this list occur on no other continent page. Ethiopia and Eritrea spell their names in Ethiopic, the script of Amharic and Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ and ኤርትራ. Algeria and Morocco set a Tifinagh form beside the Arabic one, ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ in Kabyle for Algeria and ⵍⵎⵖⵔⵉⴱ in Tamazight for Morocco.

Fifteen rows hold more than one form. South Africa shows four, Suid-Afrika in Afrikaans, iNingizimu Afrika in Zulu and uMzantsi Afrika in Xhosa next to the English name; the Comoros have three, Komori, Comores and جزر القمر. In 26 rows the country's own name and the English one are spelt identically, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia among them.

Renamed countries and new capitals in Africa

A few entries differ from older country lists. Eswatini was called Swaziland in English until 2018, while its codes SZ, SWZ and 748 stayed as they were. South Sudan, independent since 9 July 2011, is the newest state in the table, coded SS, SSD and 728. Cape Verde appears as Cabo Verde, its Portuguese name, the form ISO 3166-1 lists.

The two Congos are told apart here by their capitals, Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa; in French they are the République du Congo and the République démocratique du Congo. Equatorial Guinea moved its capital from Malabo to Ciudad de la Paz in January 2026, as the Equatorial Guinea page records.