Baghdad, Nov 25 (IANS): Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani announced Monday that the country's population has exceeded 45 million.

From November 20 to 23, Iraq launched a nationwide population and housing census for the first time in 27 years.

In a press conference, al-Sudani said Iraq's population has reached 45,407,895, including foreigners and refugees residing in the country, citing the preliminary results of the country's recent general population and housing census.

About 50.1 per cent of the total population are males and about 49.8 per cent females, while 70.3 per cent of the population lives in urban areas and 29.7 per cent in rural areas, Xinhua news agency reported.

The results also showed that the working-age group between 15 and 64 constituted the highest percentage, reaching 60.2 per cent of the total population, followed by the youth group under 15 years at 36.1 per cent and the elderly group over 65 years at 3.7 per cent, al-Sudani said.

Iraq traditionally held a population census every 10 years, but the last was conducted in 1997 without the participation of the Kurdistan region. No census had been conducted since the 2003 US invasion.