Before the civil war,the population of Somalia was estimatited at 7.7 millions people.it is believed that about 400,000 people died of famine or disease or were killed in the war,and nearly 45% of the population was displaced inside Somalia  or fled to neighbouring countries,to the Middle East,or to the West.

Somalia’s population is mostly rural.Nearly 80% of the people are pastoralists,agriculturalists,or agropastoralists.Except for small number of somalis who rely on fishing,the rest of the population are urban dwellers.Somalia’s chief cities and towns are Mogadishu, (capital),Hargeisa,Borama,Burao,Bossasso Berbera,Marka,Brava,Baidoa, and Kismayo.In the past frew year,civil war and famine have changed urban demographics,as hundreds of thousands of displaced somalis have poured into the cities seeking sanctuary and relief.

Ethnically and culturally, Somalia is one of the most homogeneous cuntries in Africa.Somalia has its minorities:There are people of Bantu descent living in farming villages in the south,and Arab enclaves in the coastal cities.A small number of europeans,mostly italians,live on farms in the south.But the great majority are ethnic somalis who speak dialects of the same language,somali,and who practice the same religion,Islam.

In the land of sparse rainfall,more than half of the population are pastoralists or agropastoralists who raise camels,cattle, sheep and goats.There are farmers,mostly in the south and nortwest,and in recent years a new urban group of gouvernement workers,shopkeepers, and traders has emerged,but it is the nomadic way of life,with its love of freedom andopen spaces,that celebrated in somali poetry and folklore.

Clans constitute the heart of Somalia society,and the challenger facing modern Somalia is how to unify a country whose people often give greater allegiance to lineage than to nation .It is important to note,however,that while somalis have traditionally fought among themselves;their greater edentity as somalis takes hold in front of strangers.

Somali is spoken throughout the eastern part of the Horn of Africa in the countries of Somalia and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, as well as in neighbouring areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. There are also many Somali communities in other parts of Africa, the Middle East and America as well as in Europe and the UK where cities such as London and Cardiff have large Somali communities.

The Somalis have been described as a nation of bards and indeed oral poetry plays a central role in all aspects of Somali life such as watering camels and political debate. The wide range of activities in which poetry is involved is reflected in the diversity of genres of poetry differing in their subject matter and stylistic characteristics. In recent decades musical accompaniment has played an increasingly important role in certain types of poetry, and theatre has become an imporant art form incorporating poetry.

The roots of the Somali language and culture have much in common with other Cushitic peoples of the Horn of Africa, such as the Oromos and Afars. Islam has, however, been one of the central formative processes of Somali history with the vast majority of Somalis being professed Muslims, and this influence is naturally to be felt in the language which contains a fair amount of Arabic vocabulary. In 1972 the then government of the Somali Republic declared Somali to be the national language of the country and an official orthography was introduced based on the Roman alphabet. Following this, much oral literature, both poetry and prose, was collected and written down and a new written literature quickly developed.