Patterns of Urbanization in Pakistan: A Demographic Appraisal

Safdar Ali Shirazi, University of the Punjab

The growth of urban population is subject of increasing concern among social scientists and government planners in Pakistan as elsewhere in the developing world. This has far-reaching implications for the demographic, socio-economic well as the political character of the nation since Independence in 1947. Keeping in view the gravity of the problem, the present work is an attempt to find out patterns of urbanization in the country. There are many methods for measurement of urbanization. In present paper percentage distribution and urban density index have been used to analyze the patterns of urbanization in Pakistan. The scope of this paper is limited to an examination of facts on urbanization for Pakistan at inter-district level. For this purpose, present research has relied wholly on the census data published by the Census Organization of Pakistan for 1981 and 1998. In addition to it recent trends in urbanization has also been incorporated.