Census of Population and Housing Sri Lanka 2012

Census of Population and Housing Sri Lanka 2012

1.0 Introduction

The Department of Census and Statistics was successfully conducted 14th consecutive Population and Housing Census in Sri Lanka in 2012. Enumeration stage of this Census comprised of two rounds. During the first round, data were collected from persons according to their places of usual residence (from 27th February to 19th March 2012). In the second round, data which was collected in the first round was updated taking into account events such as births, deaths or changes of usual residence between the date of data collection and the Census date, declared as 20th March 2012. These updates were done, based on the Census Moment which was fixed as the mid night of 19th March 2012. Enumeration of homeless people, who do not have a usual place of residence, was carried out during the mid-night of 19th March 2012.

2.0 Population distribution

According to the Census 2012, total population of the country is reported as 20,359,439. Sri Lanka has divided into 9 provinces for the administrative purposes. Among the 9 provinces, Western province reported the largest share of population (28.7%) followed by Central province (12.6%) and Southern province (12.2%). This indicates that more than half of the island's population is distributed in these three provinces even though the land area of these three provinces consists of only 23 percent of the total land area of the country. Northern province reported the lowest population share of 5.2 percent followed by 6.2 percent of share in each of North-Central and Uva provinces.

2.1 Population distribution by sector

Table 1 presents the distribution of population by province and sector. According to the Table 1, majority of population in Sri Lanka is in rural sector (77.4%). Urban population share of the country is 18.2 percent while the estate population consists of 4.4 percent. In addition data present in the table 1 shows, urbanization is relatively high in Western province (38.8 %) and very low in North Central (4.0%) and North Western (4.1%) provinces. The highest rural population is reported from North Central province (96.0%) and the highest estate population is reported from Central province. No estate population is reported from Northern and Eastern provinces.

Table 1: Percentage distribution of population by province and sector

Sri Lanka & provinces

Sector Population

Total Urban Rural Estate

Sri Lanka Western province Central province Southern province Northern province Eastern province North Western province North Central province Uva province Sabaragamuwa province

20,359,439 100.0 18.2 77.4

4.4

5,851,130 100.0 38.8 60.4

0.8

2,571,557 100.0 10.5 70.6 18.9

2,477,285 100.0 10.6 87.7

1.7

1,061,315 100.0 16.7 83.3

-

1,555,510 100.0 25.1 74.9

-

2,380,861 100.0

4.1 95.5

0.4

1,266,663 100.0

4.0 96.0

0.0

1,266,463 100.0

5.5 81.7 12.8

1,928,655 100.0

6.0 85.9

8.1

3.0 Demographic characteristics of population

3.1 Population distribution by sex

According to the Census 2012, female population is higher than male population in the country. Out of the total population, 48.4 percent are males and 51.6 percent are females. Sex ratio is reported as 94, reflecting there are 94 males for every 100 females in the country. Table 2 presents the percentage distribution of population by sector and sex and Table 3 presents sex ratio by province. According to the table 3 the highest and the lowest sex ratios are reported from North Central province and the Central province respectively.

Table 2: Percentage distribution of population by sector and sex

Sector

Sex

Population Total

Urban Rural

Estate

Sri Lanka Male Female

20,359,439 100.0

18.2

77.4

4.4

9,856,634 100.0

18.3

77.3

4.4

10,502,805 100.0

18.1

77.4

4.5

Table 3: Population and sex ratio by province

Sri Lanka & provinces

Population Sex ratio

Sri Lanka Western province Central province Southern province Northern province Eastern province North Western province North Central province Uva province Sabaragamuwa province

20,359,439

94

5,851,130

95

2,571,557

92

2,477,285

93

1,061,315

93

1,555,510

94

2,380,861

93

1,266,663

96

1,266,463

95

1,928,655

95

3.2 Population by age group

Population by broad age groups is presented in Table 4. It gives the percentages of child population, working age population and elderly population by province. Among the nine provinces the highest child population is reported from Eastern province while the highest elderly population is reported from Sabaragamuwa province.

Table 4 : Population by broad age groups and province

Sri Lanka & provinces

Population Total

Less than 15

years

Age group

15 -59

60 years and above

Sri Lanka

20,359,439

100.0

25.2

62.4

12.4

Western province

5,851,130

100.0

22.7

63.9

13.4

Central province

2,571,557

100.0

26.4

60.8

12.8

Southern province

2,477,285

100.0

25.1

60.9

14.0

Northern province

1,061,315

100.0

26.7

61.4

11.8

Eastern province

1,555,510

100.0

30.4

61.8

7.8

North Western province

2,380,861

100.0

25.4

62.4

12.2

North Central province

1,266,663

100.0

26.6

64.0

9.4

Uva province

1,266,463

100.0

26.8

62.4

10.8

Sabaragamuwa province

1,928,655

100.0

24.2

62.0

13.8

3.3 Population distribution by ethnicity

Majority of population in Sri Lanka is Sinhalese (74.9%) followed by Tamils (15.3%) and Sri Lanka Moor (9.3%). Other ethnic groups namely Burgher, Malay, Sri Lanka Chetty and Bharatha form 0.5 percent. Table 5 presents ethnic distribution by province. The highest percentages of Sinhalese, Tamil and Sri Lanka moor population are reported from Southern province (95.0%), Northern province (93.8%) and Eastern province(36.9%) respectively.

Table 5: Percentage distribution of population by ethnic group and province

Sri Lanka & provinces

Sri Lanka Western province Central province Southern province Northern province Eastern province North Western province North Central province Uva province Sabaragamuwa province

Population

20,359,439 5,851,130 2,571,557 2,477,285 1,061,315 1,555,510 2,380,861 1,266,663 1,266,463 1,928,655

Total

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Ethnic group Sinhalese Tamil

74.9 15.3

84.2

6.8

66.0 23.8

95.0

1.7

3.0 93.8

23.2 39.2

85.7

3.0

90.9

1.0

80.8 14.7

86.4

9.2

Sri Lanka Moor

9.3 7.9 9.9 2.9 3.1 36.9 11.0 8.0 4.3 4.3

Other

0.5 1.2 0.3 0.4 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.1 0.3 0.1

Table 6: Percentage distribution of population by religion and province

Sri Lanka & provinces

Sri Lanka Western province Central province Southern province Northern province Eastern province North Western province North Central province Uva province Sabaragamuwa province

Population Total Buddhist

20,359,439 100.0

70.1

5,851,130 100.0

73.4

2,571,557 100.0

65.0

2,477,285 100.0

94.7

1,061,315 100.0

2.9

1,555,510 100.0

23.0

2,380,861 100.0

74.0

1,266,663 100.0

90.0

1,266,463 100.0

80.4

1,928,655 100.0

85.8

Religion

Hindu

Islam

Roman catholic

Other

12.6

9.7

4.8

8.6

21.0

10.3

1.3

3.2

74.3

3.1

34.7

37.0

1.8

11.3

0.8

8.0

13.4

4.5

6.2 1.4 11.1 2.1

2.5 1.2 0.3 0.5 15.5 4.2 3.0 2.3 11.9 1.0 0.8 0.4 1.1 0.6

8.1

4.4

1.0 0.7

3.4 Population distribution by religion

Almost 70 percent of Sri Lankan population is Buddhist followed by Hindus (12.6%), Islam (9.7%), Roman Catholic (6.2%) and other religions (1.4%). Table 6 presents percentage distribution of population by religion and province.

3.5 Population distribution by marital status

Marital status is another important demographic characteristic of a population. Marital status is reported for the age 15 years and above population. Table 7 shows that 67.8 percent of 15 years and above population is married and almost 25.8 percent is never married in Sri Lanka. Among the nine provinces, Northern province reported the highest percentage of never married population while North Central province reported the lowest percentage of never married population. Overall Widowed population in the country is 5.2 percent and that population is highest in Northern province (7.2%) and lowest widowed population reported from Eastern province. Percentages of divorced and separated population is 0.3 and 0.9 respectively.

Table 7: Percentage distribution of population (aged 15 years and above) by marital status

Sri Lanka & provinces

Population aged 15 years and above

Total

Marital status

Never married Married Widowed Divorced Separated

Sri Lanka Western province Central province Southern province Northern province Eastern province North Western province North Central province Uva province Sabaragamuwa province

15,227,773 100.0

25.8 67.8

5.2

0.3 0.9

4,524,129 100.0

27.4 66.7

4.8

0.3 0.8

1,893,560 100.0

25.2 68.6

5.2

0.2 0.8

1,855,363 100.0

26.2 67.7

5.0

0.2 0.9

777,433 100.0

30.6 60.8

7.2

0.1 1.3

510,106 100.0

22.6 73.4

2.4

0.4 1.2

1,776,504 100.0

23.1 69.3

5.9

0.3 1.4

929,662 100.0

22.1 71.3

5.2

0.3 1.1

226,857 100.0

24.1 70.2

4.7

0.2 0.8

1,461,128 100.0

25.0 68.8

5.0

0.3 0.9

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