Demographics of Beijing

The registered population of Beijing Municipality consists of people holding either Beijing permanent residence hukou permits or temporary residence permits. The 2010 census revealed that the official total population in Beijing was 19,612,368,[1] representing a 44% increase over the last decade.[2] In 2006, the population of the urban core was 13.33 million, 84.3 percent of the total municipal population, which officially stood at 15.81 million.[3] Urban sprawl continues at a rapid pace.[4]

Historical population

Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
57	280,600	—
589	458,000	+0.09%
938	100,000	−0.44%
1113	583,000	+1.01%
1125	340,000	−4.39%
1207	1,600,000	+1.91%
1216	285,000	−17.44%
1270	1,053,000	+2.45%
1327	3,032,000	+1.87%
1369	208,000	−6.18%
1448	3,150,000	+3.50%
1644	698,000	−0.77%
1647	1,839,000	+38.12%
1781	2,956,242	+0.35%
1881	3,226,111	+0.09%
1910	2,485,442	−0.90%
1917	3,711,566	+5.90%
1935	4,595,000	+1.19%
1949	2,030,000	−5.67%
1953	2,768,149	+8.06%
1964	7,568,495	+9.57%
1982	9,230,687	+1.11%
1990	10,819,407	+2.00%
2000	13,569,194	+2.29%
2010	19,612,368	+3.75%
2013	21,150,000	+2.55%
Population size may be affected by changes on administrative divisions.

After Chongqing and Shanghai,[1] Beijing is the third largest of the four directly controlled municipalities of the People's Republic of China. In the PRC, a directly controlled municipality (直辖市 in pinyin: zhíxiáshì) is a city with status equal to a province. Even though Chongqing is the most populous municipality, it has a larger land area than either Beijing or Shanghai and includes many rural areas; Brittany Hite of the Wall Street Journal stated that Chongqing "is more akin to a small province than a city."[5]

According to the statistical yearbook issued in 2005 by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, out of a total population in 2004 of 14.213 million in Beijing, 1.415 million (9.96%) were 0–14 years old, 11.217 million (78.92%) were 15–64 and 1.581 million (11.12%) 65 and over.[6]

As of 2014, the population of Beijing almost equalled that of Australia.[5]

Ethnic groups

See also: Hui people in Beijing, Korean people in Beijing, and Uyghur people in Beijing

Most of Beijing's residents belong to the Han Chinese majority. Ethnic minorities include the Manchu, Hui, and Mongol.[7] According to the 2010 National Census there were 18,811,000 Han Chinese in Beijing along with 336,000 Manchus, 249,000 Hui, 77,000 Mongols, 37,000 Koreans and 24,000 Tujia forming the largest minorities.[8] There is one ethnic minority area in Miyun County, the Tanying Manchu and Mongolian Area. Tibetan-language high school exists for youth of Tibetan ancestry, nearly all of whom have come to Beijing from Tibet expressly for their studies.[9] A sizable international community resides in Beijing, many attracted by the highly growing foreign business and trade sector, others by the traditional and modern culture of the city. Many of these foreigners live in the areas around the Beijing CBD, Sanlitun, and Wudaokou. In recent years, there has also been an influx of South Koreans, an estimated 200,000 in 2009,[10] predominantly for business and study. Many of them live in the Wangjing and Wudaokou areas.[11][12]

Ethnic groups in Beijing, 2000 census[13] (excluding members of the People's Liberation Army in active service)
Ethnicity	Population	Percentage
Han	12,983,696	95.69%
Manchu	250,286	1.84%
Hui	235,837	1.74%
Mongols	37,464	0.28%
Koreans	20,369	0.15%
Tujia	8372	0.062%
Zhuang	7322	0.054%
Miao	5291	0.039%
Uyghur	3129	0.023%
Tibetan	2920	0.022%

Nimrod Baranovitch, author of "Inverted Exile: Uyghur Writers and Artists in Beijing and the Political Implications of Their Work," stated that the actual number of Uyghur in Beijing is greater than the official count that because official statistics do not "include the floating population".[14] Baranovitch stated that he had informants tell him that there were 10,000 Uyghurs in 2001 and 13,000 Uyghurs in 2005 but he was unable to verify the figures.[14]

Rural migrants

Rural migrant workers come to Beijing from all over China. Many move to settlements depending on their origins. For instance by 1997 many Zhejiang province migrant workers moved to Zhejiangcun in Fengtai District and many Henan province migrant workers moved to Henancun (C: 河南村, P: Hénán-cūn) in Haidian District. As of 1993, of the rural migrants in Beijing, 20.2% originated in Hebei, 17.0% originated in Henan, 14.2% originated in Anhui, 11.3% originated in Jiangsu, 10.6% originated in Zhejiang, 7.8% originated in Sichuan, 2.1% originated in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, and 16.7% originated in other provinces.[15]

Due to China's rapid economic growth, 8.2 million people migrated from rural China to Beijing (2015), but unable to secure official residency status, many rural immigrants settled in dilapidated inner city buildings and increasingly turned to constructing their own housing illegally.[16] Following a fire in a building housing migrant workers on 18 November 2017, Beijing city officials commenced a 40-day campaign to demolish buildings deemed unsafe.[17] As a result, the migrant workers have been displaced, with some of them forced to return to their home provinces.[18] The campaign drew considerable criticism. For example, a petitioned signed by more than 100 Beijing intellectuals denounced the campaign as a "violation of human rights."[19] Remarkably, China’s primary state broadcaster, CCTV, also published commentary criticizing the government's actions.[20] Amid the public mounting public criticism, Beijing's party chief Cai Qi visited migrant workers and called on employers to be more cognizant of migrant workers's wellbeing.[21]

See also

• Demographics of China
• Migration in China

References

• Liu, Xiaoli and Liang Wei, 1997. "Zhejiangcun: social and spatial implications of informal urbanization on the periphery of Beijing." Cities 14 (2), 95–108.

Notes

1. "Communiqué of the National Bureau of Statistics of People's Republic of China on Major Figures of the 2010 Population Census". National Bureau of Statistics of China. Archived from the original on 2013-07-27.
2. "省、自治区、直辖市的分性别、户口登记状况的人口". National Bureau of Statistics of China. April 2001. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
3. Figures based on 2006 statistics published in 2007 National Statistical Yearbook of China and available online at 2006年中国乡村人口数 中国人口与发展研究中心. Retrieved 21 April 2009. Archived March 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
4. Zhao, P. (2010). "Sustainable urban expansion and transportation in a growing megacity: Consequences of urban sprawl for mobility on the urban fringe of Beijing". Habitat International. 34 (2): 236–243. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2009.09.008.
5. Hite, Brittany. "Beijing Now Has Almost as Many People as Australia." The New York Times. June 19, 2014. Retrieved on June 21, 2014.
6. "Age Composition and Dependency Ratio of Population by Region (2004) in China Statistics 2005". Retrieved 5 July 2010.
7. "Beijing". People's Daily. March 2001. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 22 June 2008.
8. Current population situation of Beijing's ethnic minorities. Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine 6th National Census, 2010.
9. "Praying for peace in their hometown, Tibetan students in Beijing speak out". People's Daily. Xinhua. 24 March 2008. Archived from the original on 27 May 2008. Retrieved 22 June 2008.
10. 在华居住韩国人达百万 北京人数最多达二十万 (in Chinese). Xinhua.com. 2009. Retrieved 1 December 2009.
11. Ding, Ying (4 March 2008). "The Korean Mergence". Beijing Review. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
12. Ye Jun (2008). "Got to have Seoul". China Daily: 5. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
13. Department of Population, Social, Science and Technology Statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (国家统计局人口和社会科技统计司) and Department of Economic Development of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of China (国家民族事务委员会经济发展司), eds. Tabulation on Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of China (《2000年人口普查中国民族人口资料》). 2 vols. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House (民族出版社), 2003. (ISBN 7-105-05425-5)
14. Baranovitch, Nimrod (University of Haifa). "Inverted Exile: Uyghur Writers and Artists in Beijing and the Political Implications of Their Work." Modern China. Sage Publications. October 2007 33: 462-504, doi: 10.1177/0097700407304803. Cited: Baranovitch, p. 496. "2. According to official statistics (Zhongguo renkou tongji nianjian, 2002: 80), in 2000 Beijing had 3,129 Uyghur residents; but this figure does not include the floating population, which makes the actual Uyghur population in the capital much larger. In 2001 several of my informants estimated that Beijing had approximately 10,000 Uyghurs, while in 2005 they suggested that the number had risen to about 13,000. I could find no evidence supporting these estimates, however."
15. Liu, Xiaoli and Liang Wei, p. 98.
16. "Migrants moved on as Beijing deals with building 'disease'". Reuters. 2017-08-11. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
17. "The Beijing Migrants Crackdown". ChinaFile. 2017-11-30. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
18. Dou, Eva; Fong, Dominique (2017-11-30). "Homeward Bound: Beijing Boots Migrant Workers to Trim Its Population". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
19. Kaiman, Jonathan. "In Beijing, a mass eviction leads to a rare public display of rage". latimes.com. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
20. 李红霞. "疏解外来人口，政策应该多些"温度"_评论频道_央视网(cctv.com)". opinion.cctv.com. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
21. "Beijing Party Chief Meets With Deliverymen After Demolition Campaign Backfires - Caixin Global". www.caixinglobal.com. Retrieved 2017-12-19.