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Pakistan
POPULATION
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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