Re-identifying the Rural/Urban: A case Study of Pakistan

Abstract

The historical census of Pakistan has always categorized the urban and rural areas with criteria lacking a clear discernibility. In this research study I chose 2 criteria i.e., density and urban core proximity to differentiate areas into either rural, urban and urbanizing area. The urbanizing area was added in the methodology to identify the places which neither fit in the of rural and urban category. The 2017 population census was taken for analysis. The analysis shows that the provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have higher percentage of urban population by 27% and 3% than the official census, respectively. While province of Sindh shows a contradicting scenario showing a decrease by 18% of urban area than official census while in the province of Balochistan the urban area doesn’t exist, while the remaining areas was occupied by urbanizing area. The findings shows that urban areas far exceed the Government statistics.