Myanmar releases provisional results of first census in decades
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Myanmar released partial results of the first census in three decades Saturday, putting the population at 51 million.
The 2014 census revealed that 14.8 million people live in urban areas, with 35.3 million in the countryside.
"This shows we must focus on development projects in rural areas where more than 70 per cent of the population lives," Immigration Minister Khin Yee said.
Myanmar conducted the first census since 1983 with the help of the United Nations and donor countries.
The total population figure included an estimated 1.2 million people in culturally isolated regions of the northern state of Kachin state, the western state of Rakhine state and the eastern state of Kayin.
Some people in Kachin and Rakhine refused to reveal their ethnicity.
In some areas of Kayin state near the headquarters of the rebel Karen National Union, only the summary count of households and populations were provided, the report said.
In Kachin, the census was incomplete in 97 out of about 2,700villages. Officials encountered similar resistance in some districts of Rakhine state.
"An estimated population of 1 million has not been counted," Khin Yeesaid. "This is a political issue and must be solved by political methods."
The full results are scheduled for release in May 2015.The nation's first census, in 1872, put the population at 2.7million. It rose to 10.5 million in 1901, to 13.2 million in 1921, to28.9 in 1973 and 35.3 persons in 1983.
