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have triggered internal migrations within China. Click on the image for more information.]] 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 implemented 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 See Also: Demographics of Hong Kong Demographics of Macau ;Population: In the Mainland : 1,321,851,888 (July 2007 est.) In Hong Kong: 6,994,500 (2006 census) In Macau: 503,000 Total: 1,329,349,388 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: 1,463,144,780 2050: 1,465,224,000 ;Historical population of China in millions:
;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: 0.606% (2007 est.) Birth rate: 13.45 births/1,000 population (2007 est.) ;Death rate: 7 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.) ;Net migration rate: -0.39 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 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:'' 22.12 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 (TFR): 1.73 children born/woman (2006 est.) According to the 2000 census, the TFR was 1.22 (0.86 for cities, 1.08 for towns and 1.43 for villages/outposts). Beijing had the lowest TFR at 0.67, while Guizhou province had the highest at 2.19. It should be noted that Xiangyang district of Jiamusi city (Heilongjiang) have a TFR of 0.41, which is the lowest TFR recorded anywhere in the world in recorded history. Other extreme low TFR counties are: 0.43 in the Heping district of Tianjin city (Tianjin), and 0.46 in the Mawei district of Fuzhou city (Fujian). At the other end TFR was 3.96 in Geji County (Tibet), 4.07 in Jiali County (Tibet), and 5.47 in Baqing County (Tibet). http://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/1969.1/3892/1/etd-tamu-2005A-SOCI-Terrell.pdf ;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 for China]] See Also: One-child policy 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. While it is the most populated country in the world, its Population Density (137/km&2) is not so high, similar to Those of Switzerland and the Czech Republic . The vast majority of China's population lives in the fertile plains of the east, whereas the western half of the country is very large and relatively unpopulated. Future challenges for China will be the gender disparity partially caused by the preference for boys under the 'one-child' system, and the aging of the population, with an increasing 'western-style' problem of young-old disparity. The latter is likely to be tied to the former, as the lack of sufficient female partners for males coming of age is expected to reduce total births. ETHNIC GROUPS See Also: List of Chinese ethnic groups The People's Republic Of China (PRC) officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, 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), Tibet an (5 million), Buyi (3 million), and Korean (2 million). Ethnic minorities currently experience higher growth rates than the majority Han population. Their proportion of the population in China 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.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 2005http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjfx/ztfx/xzgwsnxlfxbg/t20020605_21432.htmhttp://www.gov.cn/test/2005-07/26/content_17366.htmhttp://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cept/chn/xwdt/t240927.htm Neither Hong Kong nor Macau recognizes the official ethnic classifications maintained by the central government. In Macau the largest substantial ethnic groups of non-Chinese descent are the Macanese , of mixed Chinese and Portuguese descent, as well as migrants from the Philippines and Thailand. Filipinas working as domestic workers comprise the largest non-Chinese ethnic group in Hong Kong. RELIGION See Also: Religion in China Religion in Hong Kong Religion in Macau 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 40.6% of mainland Chinese people are avowed Buddhists. Mahayana Buddhism is most widely practiced. With an estimated 610 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 Catholic s, and 10 million Protestant s; 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 practice of , U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture, "organ harvesting has been inflicted on a large number of unwilling Falun Gong practitioners at a wide variety of locations for the purpose making available organs for transplant operations."United Nations: Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Manfred Nowak, 20 March 2007. The former Canadian Secretary of State and Crown Prosecutor David Kilgour, along with human rights lawyer David Matas, released an independent investigative report in June 2006 about the alleged organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China's labour camps, detention centers and hospitals. The report was updated in January 2007.Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China {Link without Title} The , 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 See Also: Languages of China Chinese language Languages of Hong Kong 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 or 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), Korean (in the northeast), and Vietnamese (in the southeast). 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 Portuguese 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 Letter s. 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
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