The Chinese call their country Zhongguo. The Chinese call themselves “Han”, after the Han Dynasty. The European name of China - German Hina, French - Shin, English - China - comes from the word “chin” of the name of the Qin dynasty. The word China came into Russian from the name of the Khitan people, who lived in the country.

China is a multinational country, with 56 different nationalities living on its territory. The most numerous are Chinese - 92%.

The state official language - Putonghua - is a modern literary language. But there are many dialects in the country, and people speaking different dialects do not understand each other; they have to use hieroglyphic writing, the same for all dialects.

A Chinese person is considered literate if he knows 1.5 thousand hieroglyphs. 3 thousand is enough to read socio-political texts. Even highly educated people read fiction with a dictionary. Each hieroglyph has 4 tones (“Ma” - mother, hemp, horse, scold.)

Representatives of the non-Chinese population are settled throughout the country and do not have their own autonomous entities.

The main religions of China are Confucianism, Taoism and. Interestingly, Taoism preaches immortality, which inspired alchemists to invent the elixir of immortality. During this search, gunpowder was invented!

In terms of population, China ranks 1st in the world (1.2 billion in 1995). Censuses have been carried out since ancient times. There were 4 censuses in the PRC:

1953 – 588 million
1964 – 705 million
1982 – 1.08 billion.
1990 – 1.13 billion.

The population is distributed extremely unevenly throughout the country; most of it lives in the south of Great China, in Zhujiang, and the Sichuan Basin. and high mountain areas are almost uninhabited.

The Chinese leadership associates the fulfillment of socio-economic and political tasks with limiting the population.

Just 5-6 years ago it was planned to stabilize the population at 1.2 billion (now 1.3 billion according to official data and 1.6 billion according to unofficial data). An interesting fact: if you stand somewhere and the entire population of China walks past, it will never end, as it is growing faster.

The policy is being implemented. The official age for marriage is 20 and 22 years, but additional restrictions are introduced (For example: students are expelled from institutes.). The results of family planning began to have a strong impact in the 80s of the 20th century. Compared to the 50s. decreased from 20 ‰ to 6.7 ‰, infant mortality was 34.7 ‰, the birth rate decreased from 35 - 40 ‰ to 21.1 ‰.

The number of older people has increased (85 million people over 65 years old). However, they believe that China is now on the verge of a “baby boom” for the following reasons:

Often the second child is not registered.

The birth rate among the small ethnic groups of China is not limited.

Due to the increase in prosperity, many families can already pay a fine for their second and subsequent children.

In many rural areas, due to a lack of jobs, the government is already allowing people to have two children.

The country's population is dominated by men - 51.6%. Due to the law of having one child, newborn girls are often killed.

The country's urban population is growing at a fairly rapid pace (320 million in 1995; 840 million are planned by 2020). However, this increase is mainly due to purely administrative changes, according to which county centers and even counties receive the status of cities.

A feature of Chinese cities is the high proportion of rural residents permanently residing in cities (from 16 to 52%).

About 40% of the country's urban population is concentrated in 34 millionaire cities. The largest cities in the country are Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, Wuhan, and Chongqing. They have a very acute housing problem. So in some areas of Shanghai the population density is up to 160 thousand people/km2.

China has the most numerous. The number of people employed on the farm is almost 50%. The majority of them (74%) are located in rural areas.

Little needs to be said about the growing well-being of some of the Chinese population. A resident purchased a “lucky” number 133-3333-3333 for his mobile phone at an auction, paying 215 thousand dollars for it. A total of 100 phone numbers were put up for auction, which included the combinations 8, 6 and 9. In the end, the numbers were paid for 859 thousand dollars. And the happiest phone number for the Chinese, 8888-8888, was purchased in the spring of 2003 for 280 thousand dollars.

* The value is calculated by linear interpolation, taking into account the two values ​​closest to each other (Date -> population) (unofficial).
** Migration growth is included in the calculation of birth rate growth: Fertility = Population + Mortality.
*** We do not have data on the population in the period before 1950. The data given is based on an approximate calculation using the function: population in 1900 = 70% of the population in 1950.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World demographic prospects: 2015 revision. These estimates and forecasts were made based on the medium-term fertility option. Used with permission of the United Nations. Downloaded: 2015-11-15 (un.org)
The city density map was created from population.city using data provided to us by 1km.net. Each circle represents a city with a population of over 5,000. Link
Population density map created according to instructions from daysleeperrr on reddig. Link1. Data source: Gridded Population of the World (GPW), 3rd online version at Socioeconomic Data and Applications (SEDAC) at Columbia University.

China. When you mention this country, what comes to mind is the Chinese Wall, Chinese philosophy, inexpensive consumer goods and the almost fantastic figure reflecting the population of China.

Population of China

The population of China for 2019 is 1,420,128,163 people(current as of 08/05/2019) According to this indicator, the country ranks first among all countries in the world. But at the same time, due to the large territory, the population density is represented by a much less shocking figure - only 137 people per square kilometer. Approximately similar density indicators are observed in the Czech Republic or Switzerland. This suggests that most of the living Chinese are concentrated in large cities or individual provinces.

The most sparsely populated areas of China are the North and West, where only 5% of the population lives, as this part of the country contains uninhabitable areas such as the Gobi Desert, the Tibetan Plateau or the Taklamakan Desert Lands. The main concentration of the population is observed in the lands most suitable for living and agricultural use in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River, and on the North China Plain. There the population density is 320 people per square kilometer.

China is a multinational country

Despite the fact that the bulk of the Chinese are an indigenous nation, the Han, China can be called a multinational country. Population composition of China, in addition to the titular nation, includes 55 small nationalities, each of which is mentioned in the Constitution of the country. Among these small nationalities, the most numerous are the Zhuangs, Manchus, Hui, Miao, Uighurs, Yi, Tujia and Tibetans.

The origin of the name of the titular people, the Han, who make up more than 91% of the total population, goes back to the most ancient dynasty of the country, called the Han. And the name Chinese, familiar to Russian ears, is a transformed name of the ancient nomads - the Khitans.

This diversity of nationalities is caused by widespread settlement and a high degree of assimilation. Even the Chinese language differs depending on the region and sometimes people simply do not understand each other.

In addition to the mentioned sub-ethnic cultures, three groups are also present in China: Huaqiao, Hakka and Hui. Moreover, the number of these groups amounts to several tens of millions each. The difference between the Huits is that they practice Islam, in contrast to the Buddhist religion, which is common in most of mainland China.

The population of the country China, which lives outside the territory of their homeland, has a special name. They are called Huaqiao, otherwise, the Chinese living abroad. In total, there are approximately 35 million people in the world, mostly living in Southeast Asia.

Demographic situation

Due to the large population, which is growing at approximately 0.5% per year, the Chinese authorities were forced in 1979 to introduce a limit on the number of children per family. Each family was allowed to have no more than 1 child, an exception was and is being made only for those families where the only child is a girl, which is caused by a critical gender imbalance. Also excluded were families affected by the effects of the strong Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

Recently, due to the fact that the overall age of the nation is increasing and the number of younger generations is not restoring the balance, the Chinese government is considering lifting the one-child ban.

“The Chinese, and after them the Indians, Indonesians, and indeed the whole of Asia, clearly understood that the population of their countries is the same strategic weapon as bombs and missiles,” believes researcher Viktor Mekhov.- No one can reliably say what the actual demographic situation is in Asia, in China. All data are estimates, at best - information from the Chinese themselves.

To begin with, the author took up simple calculations. In the monograph Korotaeva, Malkova, Khalturina“Historical Macrodynamics of China” provides an interesting figure - in 1845 there were 430 million Chinese, the same number in 1940, and in 1945 - already 490 million. It turns out that in 95 years, from 1845 to 1940, the population hasn't changed. And here, over the next 72 years, taking into account wars (World War II and civil), hunger and poverty, the “One Family - One Child” program, an increase of almost a billion! “Everyone knows that the USSR lost 27 million people during the Great Patriotic War, but few people know that the second country in terms of human losses is China, it lost 20 million lives,” says Viktor Mekhov. “And despite such monstrous losses and all sorts of hardships in general, from 1940 to 1945 there was a huge increase of 60 million.” The researcher tried for a long time to calculate how many children Chinese women had to give birth to during these years for the statistics to show such a jump. He failed to combine the wonders of demography and mathematics. Mekhov came to the conclusion that the real population of China is 3 or even 4 times less than the declared one.

Adding up the population of the 20 largest cities in China, Mekhov received only 230 million. And one more interesting detail from the author of the study. China is divided into so-called autonomous regions (ARs). There are 5 of them, but in 3 of them, which occupy 4 million square meters. km - almost half the territory of the PRC - only 46 million people live. That is 3% of the population.

“Where do the other billion live? In the countryside? Where do they all fit? Where is food grown? In the mountains of Tibet, which occupy almost half of the country's territory? But they need a lot of food!” - agrees with the researcher Sergey Vasiliev from Latvia. His calculations in tons of harvest required per capita of one Chinese also led to the conclusion that there is not even a hint of a billion in the Celestial Empire.

However, opponents of this theory remind that the Chinese government includes in statistics not only Huahan (living in China), but also Huaqiao (Chinese abroad: in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, the USA, Russia, etc.). And this is almost a quarter of the Chinese.

Are there “dead souls”?

Scientists do not agree with amateur calculations. “There are really not 1.5 billion Chinese now, but, of course, not 500-600 million,” AiF said. sinologist from MGIMO Yulia Magdalinskaya. “By the end of 2016, according to the State Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, the country’s population was 1.382 billion.”

“Moreover, this figure may be even higher. During the time of the “one family - one child” policy, parents tried not to register girls born, and this hidden figure could turn out to be very impressive - up to 150 million people, says Professor Dmitry Mosyakov, head of the department of regional studies at the Faculty of International Relations and Tourism at Moscow Humanitarian University. - The times of the “cultural revolution”, of course, caused damage to the population of China. Many died, but many more were born, then no one simply counted them.”

By the way, there is an opinion that soon the population of the Celestial Empire will begin to decline. “Since the beginning of birth control, the number of newborns has decreased by more than 300 million. This has enabled Beijing to save budget costs, ease pressure on resources and the environment, given impetus to economic development, etc. But the other side of this coin has been the problem of population aging, having an increasing impact on the economy,” says Yulia Magdalinskaya. Even when the Chinese were allowed to legally have a second child in 2014, there was no demographic explosion. Experts believe that as living standards have risen, young Chinese have changed their attitudes towards marriage and children.

The population of mainland China was 1,242,612,226 inhabitants as of November 1, 2000. A few years later, by January 6, 2005, it officially reached 1.3 billion. The PRC is very concerned about population growth and has tried to implement strict family planning policies with varying degrees of success. The government's goal is one family, one child, with exceptions in rural areas and for ethnic minorities. Official government policy is against forced abortion and sterilization, but there are exceptions for the population as local officials seek to meet population policy goals. The government's goal is to stabilize the population in the early 21st century, although some current projections suggest China's population will range from 1.4 billion to 1.6 billion by 2035.

Religion plays an important role in the lives of many Chinese. The most widespread is Buddhism, according to surveys about 100 million people. Traditional Taoism is also practiced. Official figures show that there are 18 million Muslims, 8 million Catholics, and 10 million Protestants in the country, although unofficial figures are much higher.

Languages ​​spoken include "standard Chinese" or Putonghua (based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), (Shanghai), Fuzhouese, Minnan (Hoklo-Taiwanese), Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages.

Macau

95% of Macau's population is Han Chinese; they are mainly Cantonese and some Hakka from neighboring Guangdong province. The rest are Portuguese or have mixed Chinese-Portuguese ancestry. The official languages ​​are Portuguese and Mandarin, although residents primarily speak Cantonese. English is spoken in tourist areas. Macau has a university (University of Macau) with 7,700 students from Hong Kong.

Population census

Census sheets of the 6th census (2010).

Population censuses in the PRC were conducted in 1953, 1964 and 1982. In 1987, the government scheduled the next census for 1990, and each subsequent census 10 years later. The results of the 1982 census, which showed 1,008,180,738 inhabitants, are considered more reliable than the results of the two previous censuses (1953-582 million). International organizations assisted in the 1982 census, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which donated $15.6 million.

According to the 2000 census, the population of China was 1.2 billion people. By the end of 2006, the population of China increased by 114 million and amounted to 1.314 billion people (1,314,480,000 people)

• Current population: 1,329,349,388 (2007 estimate)
• Population growth: 0.606% (2007) Mortality rate: 7.00 per 1000 people (2007)
  • 1.75 children per woman (2007)
• Life expectancy: 72.58 years (2007)
  • for men: 70.89 years (2007)
  • for women: 74.46 years (2006)

Age:

• 0-14 years: 20.8% (m. 145,461,833; f. 128,445,739) (2006)
• 15-64 years: 71.4% (m. 482,439,115; female 455,960,489) (2006)
• 65 years and above: 7.7% (m. 48,562,635; f. 53,103,902) (2006)

Floor:

• At birth: 1.12 m/f. (2006)
• Up to 15 years: 1.13 m./f. (2006)
• 15-64 years: 1.06 m./f. (2006)

Fertility dynamics

In China, since the 1980s, there has been a gradual decline in the birth rate, especially sharp in 1990-2000. In 1982, the birth rate in the Middle Kingdom was 18.53 people per 1 thousand inhabitants, in 1990 - 21.06 people, in 2000 - 14.03 people, in 2010 - 11.90 people.

National composition

Ethnolinguistic map of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan)

Population of China by national groups 1953-2010

People	Census 1953		Census 1964		Census 1982		Census 1990		Census 2000		Census 2010
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
Han Chinese	547 283 057	93,94	651 296 368	94, 22	936 703 824	93,30	1 042 482 187	91,96	1 159 400 000	91,59	1 225 932 641	91,51
Minorities	35 320 360	6,06	39 883 909	5,78	67 233 254	6,70	91 200 314	8,04	106 430 000	8,41	113 792 211	8,49
Zhuang	6 611 455	1,13	8 386 140	1,21	13 378 000	1,32	15 489 630	1,37	16 178 811	1,28	16 926 381	1,26
Manchus	2 418 931	0,42	2 695 675	0,39	4 299 159	0,42	9 821 180	0,87	10 682 263	0,84	10 387 958	0,78
Hui people	3 559 350	0,61	4 473 147	0,64	7 227 022	0,71	8 602 978	0,76	9 816 802	0,78	10 586 087	0,79
Miao (people)	2 511 339	0,43	2 782 088	0,40	5 036 377	0,50	7 398 035	0,65	8 940 116	0,71	9 426 007	0,70
Uyghurs	3 640 125	0,62	3 996 311	0,58	5 986 869	0,59	7 214 431	0,64	8 399 393	0,66	10 069 346	0,75
Tujia (people)			524 755	0,07	2 834 732	0,28	5 704 223	0,50	8 028 133	0,63	8 353 912	0,62
And (people)	3 254 269	0,56	3 380 960	0,49	5 457 251	0,54	6 572 173	0,58	7 762 286	0,61	8 714 393	0,65
Mongols	1 462 956	0,25	1 965 766	0,58	3 381 000	0,33	4 806 849	0,42	5 813 947	0,46	5 981 840	0,45
Tibetans	2 775 622	0,48	2 501 174	0,36	3 874 035	0,38	4 593 330	0,41	5 416 021	0,43	6 282 187	0,47
Bui (people)	1 247 883	0,21	1 348 055	0,19	2 122 389	0,21	2 545 059	0,22	2 971 460	0,23	2 870 034	0,21
Koreans	1 120 405	0,19	1 339 569	0,19	1 766 439	0,17	1 920 597	0,17	1 923 842	0,15	1 830 929	0,14
Other	6 718 025	1,15	7 015 024	1,01			16 531 829	1,46	20 496 926	1,62	22 363 137	1,67
Total, China	582 603 417		694 581 759		1 008 175 288		1 133 682 501		1 265 830 000		1 339 724 852