The Lao People’s Democratic Republic was projected to have a population of 6.1 million in 2009, based on the 1995-2005 population growth rate of 2.1%. It has a sparse population density (26 per square kilometre) with large interprovincial variations, and an average household size of 5.9 persons. The topography breaks into lowland areas along the Mekong River that depend predominantly on paddy rice, and highland areas that depend on upland rice and the gathering of non-timber forest products for a livelihood. The population is young, but there are signs of changes in the demographic structure: the percentage of the population under 15 years of age decreased from 43.6% to 37.9% between 1995 and 2009. The nation is rural, with the beginnings of a rural-to-urban shift, as indicated by the increase in urban areas: the estimated percentage of the population living in rural areas decreased from 72.9% to 66.8% between 2005 and 2010.