China 2020 Census Results Thread (Release: Today, 11 May)

[Tender Branson]

Any chance of the regime cooking the books?

It's possible.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/China-census-called-into-question-over-14m-mystery-children

Turns out that the 2020 Census counted 253.38 million children between 0 and 14.

Meanwhile, new births between 2006 and 2020 -- the period during which these youngsters were born -- total about 239 million, based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This gap of over 5% means slightly more than 14 million children somehow joined the 0-14 age group.

The once-a-decade count was slammed as "the most unreliable census" by Yi Fuxian, a reproductive science researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S. and a critic of China's population control system.

The survey covers mainland citizens, excluding people in Hong Kong and Macao. The 5% discrepancy would make sense only if some 14 million foreigners became Chinese citizens. But even an official close to the Communist Party shot down the idea, saying it is just "not possible."

There are 4 explanations here:

* immigration of 14 million additional kids between 2006 and 2020. This can be ruled out 100%, because China is one of the most anti-immigration countries on the planet.

* birth underreporting error: authorities could have missed ca. 1 million births each year between 2006-2020, which would be a pretty big miss of 5-10% of all annual births - but who knows.

* counting errors during the 2020 Census: this is based upon the underreporting error over the years and there could be multiple counts of children by local authorities to bolster their regional influence.

* a deliberate faking and inflation of the birth numbers to avoid a grim demographic outlook to the foreign media.

While A) can be completely ruled out, a combination of B+C is very likely and even D somewhat likely.

If D) happened and they faked the birth numbers to inflate them, it will be the last time they can do so, because by 2030 the demographic collapse in China will be so immense with just 10 million births every year and 12 million deaths, that it's impossible to fake the gap.

[Tender Branson]

2020 county census data is out later this year, but here are my estimates for the largest cities:

1 - Shanghai (24.9 million, actual count)
2 - Beijing (21.9 million, actual count)
3 - Guangzhou (17.1 million, estimate)
4 - Chengdu (16.6 million, estimate)
5 - Shenzhen (15.0 million, estimate)
6 - Tianjin (13.9 million, actual count)

Suzhou, Wuhan etc. are trailing further behind, but above 10 million.

Chongqing is considered a "city province" by the Chinese government like Shanghai or Beijing, but it's so big (the size of Austria or the Los Angelese Metro Area) that I won't include it here. Also, it's population density is only 300/km², which doesn't fit a "city" definition. The cities above are all much more dense.

Shenzhen has gone from fishing village with a few hundred thousand people in the 1970s to 15 million people now.

https://www.citypopulation.de/en/china/admin/

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Shenzhen growing to 17.6 million is impressive but not unexpected.

[_.]

Shenzhen growing to 17.6 million is impressive but not unexpected.

Source?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Shenzhen growing to 17.6 million is impressive but not unexpected.

Source?

It was in reaction to a post from a Tender sock. All posts made by said sock were scrubbed by the Mod team.

[jaichind]

Other than 山西 (Shanshi) province the areas of population decrease looks a lot like the map of 1636 清(Ching)  which is the the year it renamed itself from 後金(Later Jin) proclaiming its all Chinese ambitions.


In other words the territories north of the Great Wall.

This demographic shift represents the unwinding of buildup of the Northeast for strategic reasons from the 1910s to 1960s.

In the 1920s when the Northeast was under the control of the warlord 奉系(Fengtian clique) which was based in the Northeast. In order the counter its warlord rivals, mainly the 直系(Chili clique) the 奉系(Fengtian clique) focused on the building up the industrial base of the Northeast in the 1910s to the 1920s.  After the Japanese takeover under the puppet Manchukuo this industrial buildup continued since that was the Japan base of operations on Mainland Asia.    After the PRC takeover the focus on the Northeast heavy industrial development continued in the 1950s given a) closeness of USSR made it easier for USSR aid in industrial development and b) Northeast being away from the coast made it less vulnerable to ROC and USA attack.

With the PRC-USSR break in the 1960s the strategic reasons for a focus on Northeast declined given its vulnerabilities to a possible USSR attack and during the era of economic reform the focus clearly shifted to the coastal South where it is closer to ROC and HK capital as well as foreign investment.

All these economic trends did eventually erode the relative economic importance of the Northeast which is finally showing up in demographic numbers.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Where is the population center of the PRC?

[2952-0-0]

Where is the population center of the PRC?

http://www.dlyj.ac.cn/article/2016/1000-0585/1000-0585-35-8-1547.shtml

This paper calculates it's in the Nanyang Basin, and has been remarkably stable since 1935.

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/261978704

FWIW, China's economic center has been drifting southwards since the early 1980s, but has raced southwards since 2013. If this continues, then by 2025, China's economic center will be exactly on Wuhan.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

When do county-level results come in?