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The demographics of the People's Republic of China are characterized by a large population with a relatively small youth cohort which is a result of the People's Republic of China's one-child policy. The population policies implented in mainland China since 1979 have helped to prevent an extra 400 million births which would have placed the current population near 1.7 billion.

Base statistics

No statistics are included for areas currently ruled by the Republic of China, which includes Taiwan. Unless stated otherwise, statistics only refer to mainland China.

Population

In the mainland: 1,321,851,888 (July 2006 est.)
In Hong Kong: 6,994,500 (2006 census)
In Macau: 503,000
Total: 1,329,349,388

1950: 562,000,000
1960: 648,000,000
1970: 820,000,000
1980: 984,000,000
1990: 1,147,000,000
2000: 1,264,587,054

Projections

2010: 1,347,000,000
2020: 1,430,000,000
2030: 1,461,000,000
2040: 1,454,000,000
2050: 1,424,000,000

Age structure

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

Median age

total: 32.7 years
male: 32.3 years
female: 33.2 years (2006 est.)

Population growth rate

0.59% (2006 est.)

Birth rate: 13.25 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Death rate

6.97 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Net migration rate

-0.39 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2006 est.)

Infant mortality rate

total: 23.12 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 20.6 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 25.94 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.)

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 72.58 years
male: 70.89 years
female: 74.46 years (2006 est.)

Total fertility rate

1.73 children born/woman (2006 est.)

Literacy, according to the official numbers, age 15 and over

total population: 90.9%
male: 95.1%
female: 86.5% (2002)

Nationality

noun: Chinese (singular and plural)
adjective: Chinese

Population

With a population of over 1.3 billion and an estimated growth rate of 0.57%, the PRC is very concerned about its population growth and has attempted with mixed results to implement a strict family planning policy within mainland China. The government's goal is one child per family, with exceptions in rural areas and for ethnic minorities. Official stated government policy opposes forced abortion or sterilization, but allegations of coercion continue as local officials strive to meet population targets. The government's goal is to stabilize the population and population growth early in the 21st century, although some current projections estimate a population of anywhere ranging from 1.4 billion to 1.6 billion by 2025.

In Hong Kong, the birth rate of 0.9% is lower than its death rate. Hong Kong's population increases because of immigration from the mainland and a large expatriate population comprising about 4%. Like Hong Kong, Macao also has a low birth rate relying on immigration to maintain its population.

Ethnic groups

The People's Republic of China (PRC) officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups in mainland China, the largest of which are Han, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. Large ethnic minorities include the Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uyghur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Tujia (5.75 million), Mongols (5 million), Tibetan (5 million), Buyi (3 million), and Korean (2 million).

Ethnic minorities in mainland China currently experience higher growth rates than the Han population. Their proportion of the mainland Chinese population has grown from 6.1% in 1953, to 8.04% in 1990, 8.41% in 2000 and 9.44% in 2005. Recent surveys indicate that the population growth rate for ethnic minorities is about 7 times greater than that for the Han population.

Neither Hong Kong or Macau recognize the official ethnic classifications maintained by the central government. In Macau the largest substantial ethnic group of non-Chinese are the Macanese of mixed Chinese and Portugese descent as well as from the Phillipines and Thailand. The largest non-Chinese ethnic group in Hong Kong are the Filipinas working as domestic help.

Religion

The majority of Chinese are non-religious. According to the World Desk Reference by D K Publishing, the non-religious in China constitute about 59% of the population, or about 767 million people. However, religion plays a significant part in the life of some Chinese, especially the traditional beliefs of Confucianism and Taoism. About 33% of the population follow a mixture of beliefs usually referred to by statisticians as "Traditional Beliefs" or just "Other".

About 6% of mainland Chinese people are avowed Buddhists. Mahayana Buddhism is most widely practiced. With an estimated 100 million adherents, it is the largest religious group in the country. Theravada Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism are practiced largely by ethnic minorities along the geographic fringes of the Chinese mainland. Official figures indicate there are 18 million (mostly Sunni) Muslims, 4 million Roman Catholics, and 10 million Protestants; estimates by outside followers of these beliefs for all three demographic groups are much higher.

The PRC Constitution affirms religious toleration subject to several important restrictions. The government places limits on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. Only two Christian organizations, a Catholic church without ties to the Holy See in Rome and the "Three-Self-Patriotic" Protestant church, are sanctioned by the PRC Government. Unauthorized churches have sprung up in many parts of the country, and unofficial religious practice is flourishing. In some regions authorities have tried to control activities of these unregistered churches. In other regions registered and unregistered groups are treated similarly by authorities, and congregates worship in both types of churches.

In 1999, the PRC government banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement and has since implemented a crackdown on the movement. Falun Gong claims that hundreds of thousands of its practitioners are in re-education through labor camps; thousands are in prisons or psychiatric facilities. More than 2800 practitioners have reportedly died in prison as a result of mistreatment and torture as of February 2006.

The Basic Law of Hong Kong protects freedom of religion as a fundamental right. There are a large variety of religious groups in the Hong Kong: Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity including Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism all have a considerable number of adherents.

The Macau Basic Law similarly recognizes freedom of religion though the Religious Freedom Ordinance requires registration of religious organizations. The major religions practiced in Macau are Buddhism and traditional beliefs with a smaller minority claiming no religious belief. A small minority of Christians, mostly Catholic, exists.

Language

The official spoken standard the People Republic of China is Putonghua. Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin.

Other languages and dialects include other Mandarin dialects, and Wu (Shanghainese), Yue (Cantonese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese, Teochiu), Xiang, Gan and Hakka, as well as languages of the minorities.

The seven major mutually unintelligible Chinese dialects which are considered by some to be different languages of the Chinese language family, and by some others to be dialects of the Chinese language. Each of these dialects has many sub-dialects. Over 70% of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of the Mandarin group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China. The rest, concentrated in south and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects. In addition to the local dialect, nearly all also speak Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua) which pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, which inself is one of the Mandarin group of dialects, and is the language of instruction in all schools and is used for formal and official purposes. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the northeast).

In addition to Chinese, in the special administrative regions, English is an official language of Hong Kong and Portuguese is an official language of Macao. Patuá is a Portugese creole spoken by a small number of Macanese. English, though not official, is widely used in Macau. In both of the special administrative regions, the dominant spoken form of Chinese is Cantonese.

For written Chinese, the PRC officially uses simplified Chinese characters in mainland China, while traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong and Macau.

The Pinyin system of romanization

On January 1, 1979, the PRC Government officially adopted the hanyu pinyin system for spelling Chinese names and places in mainland china in Roman letters. A system of romanization invented by the Chinese, pinyin has long been widely used in mainland China on street and commercial signs as well as in elementary Chinese textbooks as an aid in learning Chinese characters. Variations of pinyin also are used as the written forms of several minority languages.

Pinyin replaced other conventional spellings in mainland China's English-language publications. The U.S. Government and United Nations also adopted the pinyin system for all names of people and places in mainland China. For example, the capital of the PRC is spelled "Beijing" rather than "Peking."

References

1. http://www.stats.gov.cn/was40/gjtjj_en_detail.jsp?searchword=population&channelid=9528&record=6 Communiqué on Major Data of 1% National Population Sample Survey in 2005
2. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjfx/ztfx/xzgwsnxlfxbg/t20020605_21432.htm
3. http://www.gov.cn/test/2005-07/26/content_17366.htm
4. http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cept/chn/xwdt/t240927.htm

• CIA World Factbook. Accessed 19 April 2006.
• China‘s Population by Age and Sex, 1950-2050. Moving Age Pyramid.
• Alternative studies of literacy rate in China, claiming the official numbers are inflated and inaccurate

• Demographics by country
• People's Republic of China