Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA. 1
the sea, but for various reasons it appears convenient to treat it as a coast district.;
Though the delta districts of Division III have, on the whole, most inhabitants of
any in Burma, it is a district of Division IV that is actually the most thickly populated
in the province/ Each square mile in Henzada carries on an average 169
people or nine more even than Hanthawaddy, which in point of density comes second
in the province. Henzada is, properly speaking, a delta district, and its conditions
are much the same as those of Bassein, Thongwa and Myaungmya, but no portion
of its area is near the sea and it has therefore been classed with Tharrawaddy,
Prome, Toungoo and Thayetmyo as a sub-deltaic district in Division IV.
22. For Burma as a whole, exclusive of the Shan States and the Chin Hills,
Provincial density.
the
^ty .°f P°Pulation .Per square mile is 55, as
compared with 45 in 1891, or, taking as a basis
for computation the revised figures that have been obtained during the interval
by re-survey, 46. Calculated on the figures for theprovince as a whole (i.e.,
including the Shan States and the Chin Hills), the figure is 44. This, of
course, compared with the bulk of European countries and the rest of India, is
extraordinarily low. The mean density for the whole of India in 1891 was 184
persons per square mile, a figure which is rather above the Burma district maximum.
It may be of interest to note, however, that the Burma density is higher
than that of both Sweden and Norway and is not far removed from that of Russia in
Europe. According to the census held on December 3rd, 1900, the density for
Norway was 17*9 only, and at the close, of 1899 tnat f°r Sweden was estimated at
2 9'5 Per square mile. In European Russia the first general census of the population,
which took place on the 9th February 1897, gave a density of 51 per square
mile, which is actually lower than the figure for Burma proper, though above that
for the whole province with Shan and Chin land. In the first year of the century
that has just elapsed the density of the population in England and Wales was 153
inhabitants per square mile. The preliminary figures for the census of the 1st April
1901, the first year of the new century, show that that density has now risen to
558 per square mile ;
in other words England and Wales are at thVpresent moment
almost exactly ten times as thickly peopled as Burma proper and have a population
more than twelve times as dense as that of the whole of the regions with which
the Provincial Census Department had dealings.
This is not the place to discuss the difference between the mean district densities
for the recent and previous censuses, though these earlier figures are given
in Subsidiary Table I-A. It will be sufficient to state merely that there has been
a steady increase throughout the province, and to remind those interested that, in
consequence of the more accurate survey alluded to above, the densities for previous
years now given differ slightly from those embodied in the earlier reports.
23. Another point of view from which the population may be regarded is that
, .
Urban and rural population.
selected with the object of ascertaining its distribu-
'
,
,
L
,
j ? .,
tion over the town and country areas of the province 1
respectively. This distribution is indicated in Imperial Tables Nos. I and III and
in the Diagram showing " total and urban population by districts," which is appended
to this chapter. Let us first take Table No. I, which is to be read with
the diagram. We here find that of the total population of the province 9,500,686
persons, or 90*6 per cent, of the aggregate, were enumerated in rural areas and
989,938 or 9"4 per cent, in urban. In the Rangoon Town district the whole of
the population is urban. In the Mandalay district rather over half the inhabitants
live in towns, but the diagram shows that in all the other districts of the province
the urban element, indicated in black on the bar concerned, is relatively small. In
the Amherst district the black section of the bar represents 20 'j. per cent, of its
total length ;
elsewhere, except in the case of Tavoy, the proportion to the total
population living in towns is less than one-fifth of the total district population.
A striking feature brought out by the diagram is the fact that Hanthawaddy, which
is not only the most populous district in the- whole of Burma, but, after Rangoon
Town, Mandalay and Henzada, the most densely peopled, is inhabited by a purely
rural population. In 1891 the urban population of the province amounted to
946,649, or to 12*4 per. cent, of the total population, that is to say, was 3 per
pent, higher than in 190 1. The fall during the decade from !?"4 to 9*4 per cent.