Rural population drops by 5 percent, NSO report

Kathmandu, Jan 3: The National Statistics Office (NSO) has released a grade-wise classifications study report of rural and urban areas in Nepal on Tuesday.

The NSO has analyzed the statistics related to the trends of settlements in urban, urban-oriented and rural areas. The wards have been categorized as rural and urban areas on four bases- population, density of population, settlement areas and continuation of characteristics of urban area category.

As per the results of classification of rural and urban areas, the urban population has increased to 27.07 percent from 22.31 percent in between the National Census held in 2068 BS and 2078 BS. The urban-oriented population size has upped to 39.75 percent from 39.19 percent. The study has revealed that the rural population has dropped to 33.19 percent from 38.5 percent in the last 10 years.

“Rural population is still one third in size. While observing the trend of migration flow from rural to urban-oriented and urban areas, it has been difficult to manage population in urban areas and reduce migration in rural areas”, the study report noted.

On geographical categorization, the rural population covers 66 percent in hilly area and 16 percent in mountainous area. The urban-oriented population is 85 percent in Terai region.

As per the urban and rural area categorization at local level, around 58 percent rural population live in 2,412 wards. Around 36.1 percent of the population lives in 664 urban-oriented wards and five percent in 139 urban wards.

According to the National Census-2078, Nepal’s population in urban areas is 66.17 percent and rural areas 33.83 percent.
(RSS)