A Study of the Changes in the Number of Population and Villages in the Aradan District (Garmsar County) during 1966- 2006

A general overview of the process of changes in the country's rural population shows that in the year 1956, about 69 percent of the country's population was in rural areas and 31 percent in the cities. This proportion has faced with decreasing share of rural population and increasing share of urban population during the past years, so that it has reached 38 percent of the rural population and 62 percent of the urban population in the year 1996.
This article tries to investigate the trend of changes in the number of population and settlements in Aradan district located in Garmsar city of Semnan province during the years 1966-2006. The research methodology is a descriptive-analytical method based on field and secondary methods. The results show that between 1966-76 popuation has grown in 15% of Aradan villages, 71.91% were faced with population decline and only 1% of villages had constant growth. In the years 1976 to 1986, the percentage of villages with increasing growth rates decreased compared to previous decade, from 26.31% to 20.37%. In contrast, the percentage of villages with negative growth has decreased from 71.91% to 51.84%. The survey on the growth status of Aradan villages between 1986 and 1996 showed that the percentage of villages that have an incremental growth rate in this period decreased from 20.37% in the 1976-1986 to 9.09%. By contrast, the villages with negative growth have increased from 51.84% to 54.43%. In the period 1996-2006, the percentage of positive growth of villages increased from 9.09% to 19.64% and the negative growth rate decreased from 54.43% to 48.2%.