1.2 Population of Nepal

The size: the 2021 National Population and Housing Census — 29.16 million (the twelve-census modern series' latest; the 2011 census's 26.5 million before); the growth rate's historic fall (the 2021 census's sub-one-percent growth (about 0.92% per year — the slowdown's milestone)). The composition: the age structure (the youth bulge (the majority-of-working-age population — the demographic dividend's window) beside the children's shrinking share + the elderly's growing one (the ageing's beginning)); the sex ratio (the women's slight majority (the men-migrating effect)); the ethnic-and-linguistic mosaic (the caste/ethnic groups' hundred-plus world; the languages' hundred-plus families — the plurality the law must disaggregate). The distribution: the ecological belts (the Terai's majority share (the hills-and-mountains' draining)); the urban explosion (the new federal municipalities' redefinition (about two-thirds counted urban in 2021 — the definitional caution beside the Valley's real crush)); the international face (the absentee population's million-plus (the remittance economy's demographic)). The disaggregated situation: the women, the children, the elderly, the persons-with-disabilities, the caste-and-ethnic minorities (the Dalit communities) — the disaggregated data's demand (the inclusive planning's foundation); the provincial contrasts (the federalism's demographic faces). The socio-culture- religious context: the Hindu-majority society (about 81% per the 2021 census) with the Buddhist, Muslim, Kirat, Christian and other minorities; the son-preference's cultural residue; the early-marriage practice's persistence against the law's twenty-year floor; the joint-and-nuclear families' transition; the festival-and-ritual world's demographic faces (the purification-and-fertility beliefs' interface with the reproductive-health access).