Population

Population

World is made up of living as well as non-living things. Both these things constantly interact with each other. Each thing takes something from the other and in return gives something back. For the proper functioning of our world, a harmonious balance exit between the living and non-living things. One of the most important ways in which we can do so is by educating ourselves about the living and non-living things in our world. This unit provides an introduction to population and environment education.

Population Education:

All the living beings in this world live in groups. Each such group is loosely called population. Each population performs its activities differently and interacts with the non-living world in its own way. Thus, we should have some idea about population first.

The world ‘population’ generally describes a collection/group of organisms present in a specific area during a specific time. In our present context, we are using the term ‘population’ to describe human beings. Thus, population is the total number of people living in a specific area during a particular time.

Population Measure

The total population of a country is determined by the census. A census means to count the total number of people living in a country. A census also collects information about the status of the people. For example, whether people are residents of the same country or they are from other countries; what is their caste, their age, their marital status etc. The size of the population varies from place to place, country to country and time to time.

In Nepal, census is in every ten years. The first census of Nepal began in 1911AD. The 2001AD census was the tenth one. The first census of Nepal enumerated the population as 5.6 million, whereas the tenth census enumerated it as 23 million. The following table shows the population of the five development regions in Nepal in 2001AD:

Population of Nepal in 2001AD

Regions-----------------------------------Male --------------- Female ----------- Total

Eastern Development Region ------- 2,670,622 ---------- 2,673,854 ------- 5,344,476

Central Development Region ------- 4,109,059 ---------- 3,922,570 ------- 8,031,629

Western Development Region ------ 2,198,170 ---------- 2,372,843 ------- 4,571,013

Mid-western Development Region --1,500,526 -------- 1,512,449 -------- 3,012,975

Far-western Development Region -- 1,085,544 --------- 1,105,786 -------- 2,191,330

Total population -------------------- 11,563,921 -------- 11,587,502 --------- 23,151,423

Reference: CBS, 2001 AD

Important of Population

The development of a nation depends on manpower, money and management of resources. A population is needed for the development for the development activities of the nation. If the population is very low, we face scarcity of resources. Therefore, a proper balance between population size and resources is needed for a nation to successfully develop.