• Madagascar and Uganda have the highest number of days (19) spent observing public holidays yearly. Along with Madagascar and Uganda, Senegal, Tanzania and Morocco all spend 5% of the calendar year observing public holidays.
• Eritrea, Mauritania São Tomé & Príncipe and Sudan have the least number of days (8) observed as public holidays yearly.
• Some African countries have multiple independent days – Cameroon, Libya, Western Sahara, Somalia have multiple days observed as independence days.
• Some countries give 1 day for the observance of religious festivals while others give more than 1 day for the same religious festival. For example, Eid is 1 day in Uganda and South Sudan while in Egypt, it is more than a day. Likewise, while South Sudan observes Christmas Eve as a holiday, South Africa does not observe this day (Christmas Eve) as a holiday – South Africa has a ‘day of goodwill’ which is after Christmas.
• Most African countries (10) spend 12 days in observance of public holidays.

Research Table: Public Holidays