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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Figure 6. Population by Age and Gender, 1993
Source: Based on information from PC Globe 5.0: The New World
Order, Tempe, Arizona, 1992.
Street scene outside Lohari Gate, Lahore
Courtesy Anita M. Weiss
Various forms of transportation as found in Lahore--tonga,
rickshaw, automobiles, and carts
Courtesy Anita M. Weiss
In early 1994, the population of Pakistan was estimated
to be
126 million, making it the ninth most populous country in
the
world. Its land area, however, ranks thirty-second among
nations.
Thus Pakistan has about 2 percent of the world's
population
living on less than 0.7 percent of the world's land. The
population growth rate is among the world's highest,
officially
estimated at 3.1 percent per year, but privately thought
to be
closer to 3.3 percent per year by many planners involved
in
population programs. Pakistan's population is expected to
reach
150 million by 2000 and to account for 4 percent of the
world's
population growth between 1994 and 2004. Pakistan's
population is
expected to double between 1994 and 2022.
These figures are estimates, however, because ethnic
unrest
led the government to postpone its decennial census in
1991. The
government felt that tensions among Punjabis, Sindhis,
muhajirs (immigrants or descendants of immigrants
from
India), Pakhtuns, and religious minorities were such that
taking
the census might provoke violent reactions from groups who
felt
they had been undercounted. The 1991 census had still not
been
carried out as of early 1994. The 1981 census enumerated
84.2
million persons (see
table 2, Appendix).
Data as of April 1994
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