Beijing's Population Increases by 3 Million in 10 Years

The Chinese capital now has a total population of 13.819 million, three million more than that 10 years ago, the municipal statistics bureau said Thursday, citing the results of China's fifth national census which started on November 1 last year.

Outsiders contribute the most to the population increase, said Gu Yanzhou, deputy director of the bureau, giving a figure that 70.4 percent of the city's increased three million people are immigrants from other places.

According to statistics, Beijing has 4.176 million households, each has 2.9 persons on average. The figure was 3.2 persons per family in 1990 when China carried out its fourth national census.

Statistics show that 52.1 percent of the Beijing residents are male and 47.9 percent are female; 3.103 million, or 22.5 percent, live in the rural area, and 10.716 million, or 77.5 percent, live in urban districts.

Among every 100,000 people, 16,843 have received at least college education, compared with 9,300 a decade ago; 16,956 have received only primary school education, down by 5,623 persons from 1990.

Natural Population Growth Rate Drops in Beijing

The natural growth rate of Beijing's population is 0.09 percent, a drop of 0.57 percentage points from 10 years ago, the municipal statistics bureau said Thursday, citing the results of the fifth census.

The birth rate in Beijing is 0.6 percent and the mortality rate is 0.51 percent, both decreasing by 0.64 and 0.07 percentage points, respectively, from 1990 when last census was conducted.

All this indicates that Beijing has consolidated the situation of low birth rate, low mortality rate, and low growth rate of the population, said Gu Yanzhou, deputy director of the bureau.

Statistics show that Beijing now has a population of 13.819 million. People at the age of 65 or above account for 8.4 percent, up 2.1 percentage points from 1990. This indicates that Beijing is stepping into an aging society, Gu said.






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