January 3: The urban population of Nepal has significantly increased by around five per cent in the last decade due to internal migration.

A report on Degree of Urbanization in Nepal released by the National Statistics Office on Tuesday on the occasion of the Statistics Day shows that the urban population has increased to 27.07 per cent in 2021 from 22.31 per cent between 2011.

Similarly, the peri-urban population has increased from 39.19 per cent to 39.75 per cent. The report launched by Chief Secretary Dr Baikuntha Aryal mentioned that the rural population has decreased from 38.5 percent to 33.19 per cent in the last 10 years. 

"Majority of the population still resides in peri-urban areas that are regarded as ‘urban’, while in character are urbanizing. Yet, the rural population is still one third, while based on the trend, the migration from rural areas to peri and urban areas provides an insight of pressure on the urban areas to accommodate and for the rural areas to retain the population," said Spokesperson for the Office, Dr Hem Raj Regmi. 

According to the National Census 2021, the population of urban municipalities is 66.17 per cent and that of the rural municipalities is 33.83 per cent. 

There are 753 local levels in the country. Among them, 293 are urban municipalities (including metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities) and 460 are rural municipalities. 

On the occasion, Chief Secretary Dr Aryal stressed that the concerned offices of three-tier governments should pay attention to make policy and programmes based on statistics and evidence. -- RSS