ISLAMABAD, Oct 4: For the first time Population Census Organisation has published district-wise report of all union councils of Punjab that contain population data and its division by sex, rural and urban areas and literacy rate.

“We have done this for the first time in the history of the nation,” Mohammad Anwar Shahid, senior publication officer of the Population Census Organisation, told Dawn on Wednesday.

Mr Shahid said with the introduction of the new local government system, union councils had become primary units of the new setup. He said the organisation had published data as per the desire of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) which wanted to tabulate basic data on population and housing at the union council level necessary for planning and micro-level development.

The classification of the data is according to the 1998 census, he said.

Punjab has 334 districts with 3,454 union councils and 25,930 villages. Among the districts, maximum number of 192 union councils are in Gujranwala, followed by 170 in Rawalpindi. Layyah and Hafizabad districts have the least number of union councils, 44 and 45 respectively.

According to the published data, the maximum number of 1,543 villages are in Sialkot district, whereas Lahore have only 261.

In 1998, the total population of Punjab was 73.62 million as against 47.29 million in 1981 census, showing an annul growth rate of 2.6 per cent.

Among the 34 districts of the province, four districts — Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi — comprise over 25 per cent of its total population.

Lahore district with a population of 6.31 million is on the top followed by Fasalabad with 5.42 million. Gujranwala and Rawalpindi were on the third and fourth position with 3.4 million and 3.36 million, respectively.

The total area of Punjab is 205,345 square kilometres with a population density of 359 persons per square kilometre in 1998. Lahore district has the highest density of 3,566 persons per square kilometre followed by Gujranwala with 939 persons.

Contrary to this, population density of Rajanpur and Bahawalpur districts are 90 and 98 per cent per square kilometres, respectively.

In terms of area, Bahawalpur district is the largest having an area of 24,830 square kilometres followed by Rajanpur and Rahimyar Khan with an area of 12,318 and 11,880 square kilometres, respectively.