EDITORIAL News Item, News-in-Asia, September 2018
Sri Lanka’s mid year population as at 2017 was estimated at 21.444 million, a rise from 21.203 million estimated in 2016, latest official data showed here Friday.According to a report in Ceylon Today, quoting official data, since 2012, Sri Lanka’s population has increased by 1,019, million. The highest population increase was recorded from the capital Colombo District with a population of 2.419 million and the lowest was from Mullaitivu, in the north. with a population of 96,000.
A total of 169,365 marriages were registered last year in the island country. This was a decrease of 2.6 per cent compared with 2016, where the number of marriages recorded was 173,990.
The number of live births last year was 326,052, down from the 2016 figure of 331,073 while the number of deaths last year was 139,822.
Last year, 8 percent of the population was aged 65 and over. People aged under 15 years comprised 25 percent of the population and 67 percent were aged between 15 to 64.
There were more females than males especially among higher age groups due to the longer life expectancy of females.
