  This study aims at identifying and understanding the parent population of
novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by studying the local, projected,
stellar population. The star formation history of the local environment around
novae is studied based on photometric data of stars and star clusters in the
nova neighbourhood, available in the OGLE II survey and star cluster
catalogues. The ages of stellar population within a few arcmin around novae
regions are estimated using isochrone fits to the V vs (V-I) colour-magnitude
diagrams. The fraction of stars in various evolutionary states are compared
using luminosity functions of the main-sequence stars and the red giant stars.
The age, density and luminosity function of the stellar population are
estimated around 15 novae. The upper limit of the age of the intermediate
stellar population is found to be 4 Gyr in all the regions, excepting the
region around the slow nova LMC 1948. Star formation in these regions is found
to have started between 4 - 2.0 Gyr, with a majority of the regions starting
the star formation at 3.2 Gyr. This star formation event lasted until 1.6 - 0.8
Gyr The star formation history of the underlying population of both the fast
and moderately fast novae indicate their parent population to be similar and
likely to be in the age range 3.2 - 1.0 Gyr. This is in good agreement with the
theoretical age estimates for Galactic cataclysmic variables. The region around
the slow nova shows a stellar population in the age range 1 - 10 Gyr, with a
good fraction belonging to an older population, consistent with the idea that
the progenitors of slow novae belong to older population.
