Chapter 15 Internal Migration in Nepal - Central Bureau of Statistics

Tarai has 29 urban centres with 45.5 per cent of the total urban population of Nepal. The
Kathmandu Valley with five urban centres including Kathmandu (the capital) has 30.9 per cent of
the total urban population. The hill except the Kathmandu Va lley has only 22.3 per cent of the
total urban population even though it has 22 urban centres. The mountain zone has only two urban
centres possessing only 1.4 per cent of the urban population in the country. Detail examination of
the growth and development of urbanization in Nepal has been included in chapter 10 of this
monograph. Aspect of international migration that includes the magnitude and growth of foreign
born population has also been examined in chapter 14 of this monograph.
For the sake of simplicity, four groups of towns belonging to three ecological zones and one
separate region of Kathmandu Valley have been referred here. Ninety five per cent of populations
living in two urban areas of mountain were non-migrants. Internal migrants from rural areas of
other districts constituted 31.6 per cent in Kathmandu Valley towns followed by 23.3 per cent in
Tarai towns and 16.9 per cent in hill towns. Internal migrants to Kathmandu Valley towns from
urban areas of other districts were only about 5 per cent. Internal migrants coming from urban
areas of other district to other zones constituted less than two per cent.
Looking at individual towns in the hill, almost one quarter of the population in Illam, Dhankuta,
and Udayapur comprised of internal migrants from both rural and urban areas of other districts.
Hetauda (33.5%), Pokhara (30.9%) and Birendranagar (29.5%) have been the destination of
migrants from their neighbouring districts (See Appendix 15.4).
In Kathmandu Valley, Kathmandu city had almost 42 per cent internal migrants from both rural
and urban areas of other districts (44% with foreign born) in 2001. If intra-district migration were
to be considered, this city had more than 50 per cent in-migrants in 2001. Of the total Valley inmigrants,
Kathmandu city alone received 78.6 per cent of the total rural migrants and 64.8 per
cent of the urban migrants from other districts (Column percentage from Appendix 15.4 not
shown). Except Bhaktapur, other cities of the Kathmandu Valley such as Lalitpur (32%),
Madhyapur (27.6) and Kirtipur (23.2%) have been receiving increasing proportion of in-migrants
during the last decade.
Among the 22 hill towns, Pokhara in the western hill has 36.4 per cent of all rural in-migrants and
24.6 per cent of all urban in-migrants of other districts followed by Hetauda with 16.1 per cent
from rural and 23.7 per cent from urban. Biratnagar, Dharan and Butwal are the Tarai towns with
more proportion of in-migrants among the Tarai towns. Among towns in the Tarai zone, Butwal
(49%), Bharatpur (42.6%), Dharan (41.3%) and Itahari (41.6%) have been the most dominant in
receiving internal migrants. Many other towns in the Tarai zone have internal migrants exceeding
25 per cent. Birgunj, Gaur, Siddarthanagar, Bhadrapur, Nepalgunj, Kapilbastu, Kalaiya,
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