National Census Preliminary Results Released: Iran's Urban Population Up

The findings of the recent National Population and Housing Census show Iran's population is over 79.92 million, which is about 4.77 million more compared to the previous figure registered by the census conducted in the Iranian year 1390 (March 2011-12).

"Out of the total 79,926,270 Iranians or 24,196,035 households, 59,146,847 or 18,125,488 households live in urban and 20,730,625 people or 6,070,547 households live in rural areas. The urban population shows an increase of 5,500,186 and the rural population has decreased by 772,383 compared with the 1390 National Census," the head of Statistical Center of Iran, Omid Ali Parsa, was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.

Parsa noted that the number of households in urban and rural areas has increased by 2,697,640 and 312.748 over the same period of the previous year respectively.

The census put the number of men at 40,498,442 and the number of women at 39,427,828, meaning the sex ratio stands at 103:100. The previous census put the ratio at 102:100.

"At present, an average of 3.3 people lives in each Iranian household. The figure for urban and rural areas is 3.3 and 3.4 respectively. This shows a decrease compared with five years ago when the number of people per household reached 3.5 for urban and 3.7 for rural areas," he said.

The SCI chief noted that the unemployment rate for the current Iranian year (ends March 20, 2017) stood at 12.4%.

"The population of those employed in all economic sectors, except for construction, increased to 22.7 million [compared to the previous year]. Men's and women's unemployment rates stood at 10.5% and 20.7% respectively," he said.

The SCI put youth unemployment rate, i.e. the proportion of the population between the ages of 15-24 and 15-29, at 29.4% and 25.9% respectively.

The latest national census was carried out nationwide from September 24, 2016, in two stages of online and door-to-door registration, Mehr News Agency reported.

The door-to-door phase, which was the second phase, ended on November 18.

The online registration, in which 11.1 million households—almost 37.2 million people accounting for 46.4% of the population participated, began on September 24 and ended on October 21.

The Statistical Center of Iran is the official body in charge of providing data on population, agriculture, manufacturing, trade and economy of Iran.

The population and housing census used to be conducted once a decade in Iran, as stipulated by national legislation between 1956 and 2006. The first such census was completed by the Bureau of General Statistics in 1956; subsequent censuses were conducted by SCI in 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2006.

The Cabinet adopted a legislation in 2007 whereby the interval for population and housing census was reduced from 10 years to five.

The 2011 census was the seventh and the latest National Population and Housing Census of the country.