Distillers Country guides / Gabon
Gabon
A one-page guide to Gabon for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Libreville
- Official languages
- French
- Currency
- Central African CFA franc (XAF)
- Time zone
- UTC+1 (WAT)
- Area
- 267,670 km²
People
- Population
- 2.6 million (2025)
- Population growth
- 2.1% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 92.1%
- Aged under 15
- 36.2%
- Aged 65 and over
- 4.1%
- Life expectancy
- 68.5 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$21.4 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$8,263 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 2.47% (2025)
- Inflation
- 1.77% (2025)
Climate
Equatorial climate with rainforest (the Wikipedia page gives no temperatures or season dates).
Alcohol
- Alcohol is
- Legal
- Legal drinking age
- 18 for on-premise sales; no national minimum age for off-premise sales (WHO 2018 country profile, status 2016: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profiles/substances-abuse/GAB.pdf)
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 8.0 litres of pure alcohol (2022)
- What people drink
- Beer 76%, wine 9%, spirits 14%, other 1% (2016)
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Gabonreview - LFR 2026 alcohol and tobacco taxes (20 Jul 2026); Gabonreview - imported drinks prices (15 Jul 2020); Wikipedia - Gabon; WHO country profile GAB; Sagaci Research: Spirits market in Gabon. Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.