Nigeria won its third Africa Cup of Nations championship with a 1–0 victory over Burkina Faso in the final.

CAF agreed to award the next three editions from 2010 to Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Libya respectively.

[4] A total of 47 countries entered the qualification, including South Africa, which automatically qualified.

Libya was not allowed to keep its automatic qualification after being stripped of its hosting rights due to the Libyan Civil War.

South Sudan was ineligible to participate as the qualifying competition had already started by the time its membership of CAF was confirmed.

The South African Football Association opened bidding to all 2010 FIFA World Cup host cities[5] however a maximum of seven venues would be used.

[12] Download coordinates as: The official match ball for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations was manufactured by Adidas and named the Katlego, which means "success" in Tswana language.

[19] The other 14 qualified teams were ranked based on their performances during the last three Africa Cup of Nations, i.e. the 2008, 2010 and 2012 editions.

Moreover, a weighted coefficient on points was given to each of the last three editions of the Africa Cup of Nations as follows: The teams were then divided into four pots based on the ranking.