“Cambodian People live in the urban areas continue to develop while the urban population reach from 19.5 percent in 2008 to 21 percent currently,” the planning minister announced late last week.
H.E. Chhay Than, Minister of Ministry of Planning, said that urban residents in Cambodia are increasing year to year from 19.5 percent to 21 percent. If comparing with other countries in region, urban people in the country are lower than before, minister sale, adding that 60 percent of the population in Malaysia live is urban areas and 100 percent for Singapore.
According to estimation of the reporter from United Nation (UN), one third of of total population of the Southeast Asia area living in towns and the figure will rise up to 50 percent in 2020. In order to manage towns and cities, Cambodia government divides whole country into 23 provinces with one capital, Phnom Penh, which has eight districts. Currently, the country is divided into 26 cities in 23 provinces, 1417 communes and 159 districts. There are 204 communes in Phnom Penh.
14,119 villages are covered in the administrative system in the country. Beside Phnom Penh, three are cities: Poipet (Banteay Meanchey), Suong (Kampong Cham) and Bavet (Svay Rieng).
“The primary reason that people move from rural areas to city is to seek for income. Even though health and study are also factors, but economic factor is dominant,” H.E. Chhay Than said, adding that nowadays, Cambodia’s urban population is still increasing, but the country face urbanization and inadequate infrastructure because the basic infrastructure cannot keep up lifestyle of people. The environment also will be affected and caused social problem, Minister noted.
“In general, the different between town and rural areas are age at marriage, mortality rate, literacy rate, number of school enrolment, clean water system and other factors,” he said.
Currently, there are 26 cities while some districts ranked as town because there was already re-classification in 2004, so town population through censure 2008 is 23 percent. If the calculation based on this method used for study in 2004 is correct, there are three elements to keep track of: (1) density of district which has more than 200 people; (2) the percentage of men involve into agriculture field less than 50 percent, and (3) the total population in district is more than 2,000, the urban population is up to 21 percent. Moreover, if the calculation adding population numbers based on the sub-decree with three elements above, the urban population is reach up to 25 percent.
Source: The Southeast Asia Weekly, September 11-17, 2011, Vol. Issue 37, Page 5
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