ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s population has surged to 207.68 million whilepopulation growth has recorded at 2.40 percent from 1998 to 2017, report ofsixth Population and Housing Census-2017 revealed Tuesday.

The Council of Common Interests (CCI) in its meeting held on April 12,2021, approved the final results of the 2017 census.

According to the latest statistics from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics,the country’s total population stands at 207.68 million which includes106.018m males, 101.344m females, and 321,744 transgender persons.

According to the latest results of the fifth most populous country in theworld, the predominant majority 132.013 million lives in rural areas whilethe urban population stands at 75.67 million- that makes it around 36.44percent of the total population.

The southeastern province of Sindh is marked as the most urbanized provincehaving a 51.88 percent population in urban areas, whereas, 48.12 percentrural population. The total population of the province is said to be around47.85 million.

Meanwhile, the country’s financial hub Karachi remained the most populatedcity of Pakistan. At least 10,624,894 people lived in the provincialcapital, revealed the Census-2017 report.

Punjab, being the largest province in terms of population, stood at 109.99million people that earlier recorded 47.29 mn and 73.62mn people in the1981 and 1998 exercises. The total population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa standsat 30.51 million, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) 4.99 million,Punjab 109.99 million, Sindh 47.85 million, Balochistan 12.34 million, andIslamabad 2 million.

The report suggests that 55.98 percent of the total population is between15-64 years of age, while the youth 15-24 years of age constitute 19.19percent of the total residents.

The literacy rate in the south Asian country has reached 58 percent whichwas earlier recorded at 43.92 percent in 1998.

The total population count includes 96.47 percent Muslims, followed by 1.27percent Christians, 1.73% Hindus, 0.09pc Ahmadis. The report furtherrevealed that at least 7.08% of the people mentioned Urdu as their motherlanguage, 38.78 pc Punjabi, 14.57pc Sindhi, 18.24pc Pashto, 3.02pc Balochi,0.17pc Kashmiri, 12.19pc Seraiki, 2.44pc Hindko, 1.24pc Brahvi, and 2.26pcothers.

Let it be known that the Census-2017 was conducted in two phases, eachphase comprised of 30 days. It started on March 15 and ended on May 24,2017.

Earlier in April 2020, the central government had approved the officialrelease of the Census-2017 results which had been withheld for the lastcouple of years due to a number of controversies.