Abstract

Wholesale and retail trade is the largest block of Pakistan’s enumerated economic establishments. Using the district release of the 2023/24 Economic Census, joined to 2023 population totals, this note maps the stock of trading premises and retail shops across 135 districts in the four provinces. It then sets that stock beside the SECP company register, as a measure of formal entry, and beside satellite night-time lights, as a measure of subsequent activity growth. The three layers support a simple district typology and a reading of formalisation as a thin overlay on a vast micro-enterprise base.

Keywords

  • Pakistan
  • Economic Census
  • wholesale and retail trade
  • retail density
  • informal enterprise
  • company registration
  • night-time lights
  • spatial structure

About the author

Muhammad Usman

Faculty of Social Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1119-3458

Muhammad Usman is based at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. His research addresses the spatial organisation of enterprise in Pakistan, the formalisation of a vast micro-commercial base, and the ways globalisation and geopolitics reshape commercial systems from metropolitan cores to the sparse periphery.

How to cite

USMAN, Muhammad. Spatial Structure of Commerce in Pakistan in Terms of Establishment and Formalization. Global Insights & Research Network [online]. 2026, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 59–88. ISSN 3029-8318. Available from: https://girn.uk/2-2026/spatial-structure-of-commerce-in-pakistan/

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Licence and copyright

Copyright © 2026 Muhammad Usman. This article is open access, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).

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