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PEOPLE

Population
China is by far the most populous country in the world. Two minutes after midnight on
January 6, 2005, Chinas official news agency, Xinhua, announced that the countrys 1.3
billionth baby had been born in the Beijing Gynecology and Obstetrics Hospital (China
Welcomes 1.3 Billionth Citizen in Mixed Mood 2005). Chinas population is about 4.4
times that of the United States, which, according to the 2000 U.S. census, has 281,421,906
people. To use another frame of reference, one out of every five people in the world is Chi-
nese. This number includes the 6,882,600 residents in Hong Kong (Hong Kong in Fig-
ures 2005), 448, 500 in Macao (2004 Macao in Figures 2005), and 22,703,295 in
Taiwan (Registered Population 2005).
Historically, China has been an agrarian country. Since its economic reform in 1978,
however, the pace of its urbanization has accelerated. The 2000 census revealed that
Chinas urban population had reached about 456 million, accounting for slightly more than
36 percent of the total population. That number did not include another 100 million liudong
renkou (floating population), who are mostly farmers seeking job opportunities in cities.
During the early 1950s, China followed the then Soviet Unions example and encour-
aged larger families, despite some experts warning of imminent overpopulation. Then,
starting in the late 1960s, China began to enforce a stringent, unpopular family-planning
policy among the Han Chinese, which encourages mostly city residents to have only one
child, excepting families with handicapped children. Economic and administrative penal-
ties have never been effective, while overzealous local administrators and social workers
sometimes go beyond the law to fulfill self-imposed quotas. With the growth of Chinas
economy, however, there have been more voices calling for the reexamination of this policy
and its social impact on the country.

People 5

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