Demographics of China

This article is about the people living in the People's Republic of China. For the demographics of the Republic of China (Taiwan), see Demographics of Taiwan.

China is the second most-populous country in the world, with more than 1.4 billion people. Only India has more. China was the world's most populous country until India passed it in 2023.

In 2025, China's population officially stood at 1.404 billion. That was three million fewer than the year before. The birthrate was the lowest recorded since at least the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

China has a relatively small number of young people. This is partly because of the strict one-child policy, which was in effect from 1979 until 2015. The policy limited urban families to one child and rural families to two. As of 2025, the country's total fertility rate was below 1.0, one of the lowest in the world. Since 2022, deaths have outnumbered births.

According to the 2020 census, 91.11% of the population was Han Chinese, and 8.89% were minorities. China's population growth rate is -0.10%. China conducted its sixth national population census in 2010. Its seventh census was completed in late 2020, and the data was released in May 2021.

Population

Main article: Population history of China

From 1960 to 2015, China's population grew to nearly 1.4 billion. Under Mao Zedong, the population nearly doubled, from 540 million in 1949 to 969 million in 1979. Growth slowed after the one-child policy began in 1979. The 2022 data shows the population declining for the first time since 1961. China reached 1 billion people in 1982, becoming the first country to do so. China has held censuses in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. The 1982 census is generally seen as more reliable than the two before it. United Nations Fund for Population Activities gave US$100.0 million between 1980 and 1989 for various projects, including that census. China was the world's most populous nation until India passed it in 2023.

Main article: Census in China

The 2020 census counted 1,419,933,142 people, but obstetrics researcher Yi Fuxian disputes this number, arguing that local governments inflate population growth data to get financial support from the central government. China is the second most populous country, and its overall population density is similar to those of Denmark (excluding Greenland) or Ghana. The population is very uneven. In 2002, about 94% of people lived east of the Heihe–Tengchong Line, an area with 43% of the land and a density of roughly 280/km². Most people live east of the Tibetan Plateau and south of the northern steppe, in areas such as the Yangtze River Valley, Sichuan Basin, North China Plain, Pearl River Delta, and the industrial area around Shenyang. The mountain, desert, and grassland regions of the northwest and southwest have few people. Parts of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region are completely uninhabited. In 1985, the Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet autonomous regions, along with Qinghai and Gansu, made up 55% of the land but had only 5.7% of the population.

Population by sex and age group (as of 1 November 2010). For statistical purposes, the data for China do not include Hong Kong and Macau.

Population policies

Main article: Family planning policies of China

After 1949, China's leaders at first saw a large population as a strength, but they soon changed course. A birth control campaign began in 1956 but had little effect on the number of births. After the Great Leap Forward, leaders again saw fast population growth as a problem, and birth control efforts returned in the early 1960s with softer messages about marrying later. This second campaign worked especially well in cities, where the birth rate was cut in half between 1963 and 1966. The one-child policy was much more successful in cities than in rural areas, partly because raising a child cost a lot and city couples had other reasons to have just one. Since 2016, China has had a two-child policy, but data show that it has not stopped the problem of an aging population.

In 2024, researchers at the United Nations forecast that China's population would fall to 639 million by 2100. Researchers from Victoria University and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences forecast about 525 million by 2100. Demographer Yi Fuxian raised concerns about official birth rate data and estimated the population could fall to as low as 320 or 330 million. In the 2020s, China has put natalist policies in place to encourage couples to have more children, such as longer paid maternity leave, cash payments, and lower taxes. Local family-planning committees, which once enforced the one-child policy, now call women to check on their menstrual cycle. In February 2026, the Cyberspace Administration of China required social media platforms to censor content that spread "fear of marriage" or "anxiety about childbirth."

Vital statistics

See also: List of Chinese administrative divisions by life expectancy

See also: Aging of China

China's population fell by 3.39 million in 2025, as 7.92 million babies were born and 11.31 million people died. The country still has about 1.4 billion people, the second-largest population after India. The birth rate has dropped steadily since 2016, and the experts quoted here link this to changes such as more education, later marriage, city living, and high child-raising costs. Important events in China's population history included the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, and the one-child policy. Fertility, or the average number of children per woman (TFR), was 1.22 in the 2000 census and 1.18 in the 2010 census. The 2020 census reported 1.301. Guizhou had one of the highest rates in 2000, while Beijing had one of the lowest. In the 2000 census, 119 boys were born for every 100 girls. Because of this gender imbalance, the government banned selective abortions of female babies in 2004. Mortality, or the number of deaths, steadily declined from the early 1950s. Estimates for 1930 to 1949 come from Our World In Data and the Gapminder Foundation, since no official records exist for that period.

Experts have also raised doubts about the figures. A state newspaper reported 7.88 million births in 2023, while the National Bureau of Statistics of China reported 9.02 million. That newspaper report was censored soon after publication. Demographer Liang Zhongtang said the country's population figures had been manipulated for decades. The 2020 census found that males made up 51.24% of the 1.41 billion people, and females 48.76%.

Ethnic groups

For a more comprehensive list, see List of ethnic groups in China.

China officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups. The largest is the Han people, who made up 91.51% of the population in 2010. Ethnic minorities made up 8.49%, or about 113.8 million people. In recent decades, minority groups have grown faster than the Han majority, partly because they were not under the one-child policy. Several large minority groups include the Zhuang, Manchu, Uyghur, Hui, Miao, Yi, Tujia, Mongols, Tibetan, Buyei, and Korean peoples. More than 126,000 people from Canada, the US, and Europe live in mainland China.

According to Barry Sautman, the minority population has grown faster than the national population in recent decades. In 2020, 8.9% of Chinese people were ethnic minorities, up from 6.7% in 1982.

People from other immigration jurisdictions

The 2020 Census counted 371,380 residents from Hong Kong, 55,732 residents from Macau, 157,886 residents from Taiwan, and 845,697 residents from other locations, totaling 1,430,695 residents.

Religions

Main article: Religion in China

Further information: Religion in Hong Kong and Religion in Macau

This map shows religions in China and Taiwan.

Chinese ancestorism

Chinese salvationist religions, Confucian churches and jiaohua movements

Taoism

Buddhism

Christianity

Islam

Migration

Main articles: Immigration to China, Migration in China, and Chinese emigration

China's immigration rules, set by the 2012 Exit-Entry Law, are strict and focus on skills and security. They discourage immigrants with few skills and limit long-term residence for most foreigners. A system allowing immigrants to get permanent residence was introduced in 2004, but it is applied case by case. Between 2004 and 2023, about 12,000 people received this status, and naturalization rates have been even lower.

Internal migration within China is one of the largest in the world, according to the International Labour Organization. Research by Kam Wing Chan of the University of Washington suggests that China's urban population grew by about 440 million between 1979 and 2009, and most of that growth came from migration and changes in how areas were classified. Many migrants belong to a floating population, which means they do not have local household registration under the Hukou system. Because of this, rural migrant workers often have less access to local schools, city welfare programs, and many jobs. In 2011, there were 252.78 million migrant workers in China. Earlier, a large emigration called the Chinese diaspora took place from the 1800s to 1949. It was mainly caused by wars and starvation in mainland China, foreign invasions, and political corruption. Most emigrants were poor, unskilled workers, called "coolies," who went to work in the Americas, Australia, South Africa, and Southeast Asia.