How large is the population of China?
As of the beginning of 2007, the population of China is 1.31 billion. This means that the Chinese population is approximately one-fifth of the world’s total population. In other words, one out of every five human beings on earth lives in China.
According to some estimates, over two thousand years ago, in the Han Dynasty of China (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), the Chinese population was roughly 60 million. The size of the population fluctuated in the millennium that followed and did not expand by much. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the growth of the Chinese population accelerated, starting a trend that would continue into the modern times. For much of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), China enjoyed peace and stability and the Chinese population expanded quickly. During the 150 years from 1650 to 1800, the Chinese population more than doubled, increasing from 170 million to 350. In the 19th century and early 20th century, civil wars and foreign invasions, along with many other factors, slowed the growth of the Chinese population. (It is said that over 20 million Chinese died of the Taiping Rebellion that ravaged a large part of China from 1851 to 1864; over 30 million Chinese died of the destruction during the Japanese invasion and occupation of China from 1937 and 1945).
When the Chinese Communists came to power and founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese population was roughly 450 million. In the coming years, in spite of economic setbacks such as the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, in which reportedly a large number of Chinese died of famine, general peace and improvement in living standards as well as healthcare saw a continuous growth of the Chinese population. As the population pressure increased, starting in the 1980s the Chinese government adopted rigorous population control policies, which significantly reduced the birth rate in China. Still, in the six decades from the late 1940s to the early years of the 21 century, the Chinese population almost tripled, surpassing 1.3 billion. In comparison, the population of the United States, which roughly the same as China in land area, has a population of 300 million or 0.3 billion.
Below is the current (2007) distribution of the Chinese population in Chinese provinces and independent municipalities, ranked according to the size of population in a given administrative area. Figures are in millions.
1 Henan Province 96.13
2 Shandong Province 90.82
3 Sichuan Province 86.73
4 Guangdong Province 78.59
5 Jiangsu Province 73.81
6 Hebei Province 67.35
7 Hunan Province 66.29
8 Anhui Province 63.38
9 Hubei Province 59.88
10 Guangxi Autonomous Region 48.22
11 Zhejiang Province 46.47
12 Yunan Province 43.33
13 Jiangxi Province 42.22
14 Liaoning Province 42.03
15 Guizhou Province 38.37
16 Heilongjiang Province 38.13
17 Shaanxi Province 36.74
18 Fujian Province 34.66
19 Shanxi Province 32.94
20 Congqing Municipallity 31.07
21 Jilin Province 26.99
22 Gansu Province 25.93
23 Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region 23.79
24 Taiwan (“the Republic of China”) 22.27
25 Xinjiang Autonomous Region 19.05
26 Shanghai Municipality 16.25
27 Beijing Municipality 14.23
28 Tianjin Municipality 10.07
29 Hainan Province 8.03
30 Hong Kong Special Administrative District 6.86
31 Ningxia Autonomous Region 5.72
32 Qinghai Province 5.29
33 Tibet Autonomous Region 2.67
34 Macau Special Administrative District 0.44
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