How Many People Are in China? The Government Just Started Counting.

On November 1, China deployed an army of 7 million census takers to go door-to-door, gathering data about its population. It’s the seventh iteration of China’s census, and the first since 2010. The once-in-a-decade survey will provided updated information on China’s population – including crucial statistics on age distribution, as the country grapples with a stubbornly low birthrate, even after scrapping the infamous “one child” policy.

Census takers will be gathering information from November 1 through December 10, according to Xinhua, and the results will be released in April 2021. In a sign of the importance ascribed to the count, state news agency Xinhua ran a story about President Xi Jinping’s own interview with two census takers. During the interview, Xi “called for good census work to provide accurate statistical information for China’s high-quality development,” according to Xinhua. Xi’s census instructions received top billing on Xinhua’s Chinese-language homepage on November 2.

Xi expressed particular interest in knowing the “population’s size, structure, and distribution.

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