Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Beijing, China metro area from 1950 to 2025.

Population: City: Age 0 to 14: Beijing data was reported at 2.353 Person th in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 2.257 Person th for 2022. Population: City: Age 0 to 14: Beijing data is updated yearly, averaging 1.479 Person th from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2023, with 27 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,152.936 Person th in 2020 and a record low of 0.838 Person th in 2003. Population: City: Age 0 to 14: Beijing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GA: Population: Sample Survey: By Age and Region: City.

In 2021, around **** million people were estimated to be living in the urban area of Shanghai. Shanghai was the largest city in China in 2021, followed by Beijing, with around **** million inhabitants. The rise of the new first-tier cities The past decades have seen widespread and rapid urbanization and demographic transition in China. While the four first-tier megacities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, are still highly attractive to people and companies due to their strong ability to synergize the competitive economic and social resources, some lower-tier cities are already facing declining populations, especially those in the northeastern region. Below the original four first-tier cities, 15 quickly developing cities are sharing the cake of the moving population with improving business vitality and GDP growth potential. These new first-tier cities are either municipalities directly under the central government, such as Chongqing and Tianjin, or regional central cities and provincial capitals, like Chengdu and Wuhan, or open coastal cities in the economically developed eastern regions. From urbanization to metropolitanization As more and more Chinese people migrate to large cities for better opportunities and quality of life, the ongoing urbanization has further evolved into metropolitanization. Among those metropolitans, Shenzhen's population exceeded **** million in 2020, a nearly ** percent increase from a decade ago, compared to eight percent in the already densely populated Shanghai. However, with people rushing into the big-four cities, the cost of housing, and other living standards, are soaring. As of 2020, the average sales price for residential real estate in Shenzhen exceeded ****** yuan per square meter. As a result, the fast-growing and more cost-effective new first-tier cities would be more appealing in the coming years. Furthermore, Shanghai and Beijing have set plans to control the size of their population to ** and ** million, respectively, before 2035.

Metropolitan area from resources and environment science and social economic data, including data center, the Beijing municipal emergency administration, China's seismic data set download: 2015 beijing-tianjin-hebei, Yangtze river delta urban agglomeration (flow) of the floating population and large bay area characteristic research data sets, the density of population data (2000-2005-2010-2015-2020), human settlements, 1978-2017 (30 m by 30 m), the seventh in 2020 census data with vector (form), GDP raster data (2019), the data of the construction land expansion in 1978, 1985-2017 (30 m by 30 m), the population birth rate (1 km x 1 km) in 2015, the population spatial distribution of the 2000-2005-2010-2015-2020 (100 m by 100 m), and other social and economic data, statistical yearbook, three large scale urban agglomeration districts and counties, villages and towns social economic statistics and metropolis POI data (20 cities).

Population: Census: Beijing data was reported at 21,893.095 Person th in 12-01-2020. This records an increase from the previous number of 19,612.000 Person th for 12-01-2010. Population: Census: Beijing data is updated decadal, averaging 19,612.000 Person th from Dec 2000 (Median) to 12-01-2020, with 3 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 21,893.095 Person th in 12-01-2020 and a record low of 13,569.194 Person th in 12-01-2000. Population: Census: Beijing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GE: Population: Prefecture Level City: By Census.

Beijing is the capital city of the most populous country in the world. In 2010, the resident population living in the urban areas of Beijing amounted to about 16.44 million inhabitants and was forecasted to grow up to almost 22.6 million by 2024. The population of the administrative area of Beijing municipality, including the outskirts of the city, reached 21.8 million in 2024. Population development of China As the political and cultural center of China, Beijing has proven its attractiveness to Chinese as well as foreigners as a place to work and live. Furthering its appeal, Beijing is home to some of the best education and medical resources in China. Due to China’s Hukou system, permanent residents who are registered in Beijing can enjoy social benefits that are different from those in other regions. Beijing is also one of the key destinations for migrant workers in China. These migrant workers have contributed significantly to the rapid development of this giant city over the past years. Pressure from increasing population Beijing is faced with pressure from its increasing population. Despite poor air quality, increasing traffic congestion, crowded subway trains, and unaffordable housing prices, Beijing is still perceived as a place for many young people to pursue their dreams. The government is spending more on infrastructure construction to increase the city’s capacity and to improve the connection of suburban areas to the downtown. The Daxing International Airport, which was put into operation in 2019, will alleviate the pressure on the current Beijing Capital International Airport and hopefully improve the economic development of the southern part of Beijing.

Population: City: Age 65 and Above: Beijing data was reported at 2.967 Person th in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 2.733 Person th for 2022. Population: City: Age 65 and Above: Beijing data is updated yearly, averaging 1.243 Person th from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2023, with 27 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,333.618 Person th in 2020 and a record low of 0.895 Person th in 2001. Population: City: Age 65 and Above: Beijing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GA: Population: Sample Survey: By Age and Region: City.

As of 2023, about 10.1 percent of the population in Beijing was between 30 and 34 years of age, whereas only 1.6 percent were aged 85 and above. Beijing is the capital city of China and after Shanghai, the second largest city in the country. Beijing’s age distribution A broad age distribution of Beijing’s inhabitants reveals that a comparatively large share of the total population is of working age, while few children live in the city. This gap becomes even more obvious when looking at the age distribution by five-year groups: While the age cohorts between 25 and 39 accounts for 28 percent of the population, the age group between 0 and 19 accounts for only 14.6 percent. Two main reasons are responsible for this gap: On the one hand, many young people in their early working years move to the city and search for job opportunities; on the other hand, the motivation for having children in the city is low, mostly due to economic reasons. Many migrant workers from outside the city even leave their children behind when searching for better jobs in the city. Not only is the national average age distribution more balanced in this regard, but also that of many other larger cities. Prospects for the future In recent years, Beijing’s municipal government was determined to limit population inflow into the city. At the same time, former national measures of birth control were gradually relaxed and restrictions for migrants to take their children with them were partially lifted, which already had a positive effect on the number of children in the youngest age cohorts. However, given the very high costs of living in Beijing and its low attractiveness to family-oriented people, it is very likely that the average age of the population will increase quickly, leading to all the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly aging society.

Based on time series of Landsat images, this study uses the Google Earth Engine cloud platform to extract built-up land in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and integrates the results with GlobeLand30, GHS-Built, GAIA and GLC_FCS-2020 land cover products to derive the built-up land data set during the period 2000-2020 in the region. An overall accuracy higher than 90% was obtained. Based on this data set, the SDG 11.3.1 indicators-land consumption rate(LCR), population growth rate(PGR) and ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate(LCRPGR) were calculated for each city.

Population: City: Age 15 to 64: Beijing data was reported at 13.764 Person th in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 13.191 Person th for 2022. Population: City: Age 15 to 64: Beijing data is updated yearly, averaging 11.114 Person th from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2023, with 27 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 13,265.127 Person th in 2020 and a record low of 7.020 Person th in 1999. Population: City: Age 15 to 64: Beijing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GA: Population: Sample Survey: By Age and Region: City.

China is a vast and diverse country and population density in different regions varies greatly. In 2023, the estimated population density of the administrative area of Shanghai municipality reached about 3,922 inhabitants per square kilometer, whereas statistically only around three people were living on one square kilometer in Tibet. Population distribution in China China's population is unevenly distributed across the country: while most people are living in the southeastern half of the country, the northwestern half – which includes the provinces and autonomous regions of Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia – is only sparsely populated. Even the inhabitants of a single province might be unequally distributed within its borders. This is significantly influenced by the geography of each region, and is especially the case in the Guangdong, Fujian, or Sichuan provinces due to their mountain ranges. The Chinese provinces with the largest absolute population size are Guangdong in the south, Shandong in the east and Henan in Central China. Urbanization and city population Urbanization is one of the main factors which have been reshaping China over the last four decades. However, when comparing the size of cities and urban population density, one has to bear in mind that data often refers to the administrative area of cities or urban units, which might be much larger than the contiguous built-up area of that city. The administrative area of Beijing municipality, for example, includes large rural districts, where only around 200 inhabitants are living per square kilometer on average, while roughly 20,000 residents per square kilometer are living in the two central city districts. This is the main reason for the huge difference in population density between the four Chinese municipalities Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing shown in many population statistics.

Japan’s largest city, greater Tokyo, had a staggering 37.19 million inhabitants in 2023, making it the most populous city across the Asia-Pacific region. India had the second largest city after Japan with a population consisting of approximately 33 million inhabitants. Contrastingly, approximately 410 thousand inhabitants populated Papua New Guinea's largest city in 2023. A megacity regionNot only did Japan and India have the largest cities throughout the Asia-Pacific region but they were among the three most populated cities worldwide in 2023. Interestingly, over half on the world’s megacities were situated in the Asia-Pacific region. However, being home to more than half of the world’s population, it does not seem surprising that by 2025 it is expected that more than two thirds of the megacities across the globe will be located in the Asia Pacific region. Other megacities are also expected to emerge within the Asia-Pacific region throughout the next decade. There have even been suggestions that Indonesia’s Jakarta and its conurbation will overtake Greater Tokyo in terms of population size by 2030. Increasing populationsIncreased populations in megacities can be down to increased economic activity. As more countries across the Asia-Pacific region have made the transition from agriculture to industry, the population has adjusted accordingly. Thus, more regions have experienced higher shares of urban populations. However, as many cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul have an aging population, this may have an impact on their future population sizes, with these Asian regions estimated to have significant shares of the population being over 65 years old by 2035.

% of Population with Access to Water: City: Beijing data was reported at 100.000 % in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 99.812 % for 2022. % of Population with Access to Water: City: Beijing data is updated yearly, averaging 100.000 % from Dec 1995 (Median) to 2023, with 29 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 100.000 % in 2023 and a record low of 98.390 % in 2020. % of Population with Access to Water: City: Beijing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Utility Sector – Table CN.RCA: Percentage of Population with Access to Water.

Cities ranking and mega citiesTokyo is the world’s largest city with an agglomeration of 37 million inhabitants, followed by New Delhi with 29 million, Shanghai with 26 million, and Mexico City and São Paulo, each with around 22 million inhabitants. Today, Cairo, Mumbai, Beijing and Dhaka all have close to 20 million inhabitants. By 2020, Tokyo’s population is projected to begin to decline, while Delhi is projected to continue growing and to become the most populous city in the world around 2028.By 2030, the world is projected to have 43 megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants, most of them in developing regions. However, some of the fastest-growing urban agglomerations are cities with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, many of them located in Asia and Africa. While one in eight people live in 33 megacities worldwide, close to half of the world’s urban dwellers reside in much smaller settlements with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants.About the dataThe 2018 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects is published by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). It has been issued regularly since 1988 with revised estimates and projections of the urban and rural populations for all countries of the world, and of their major urban agglomerations. The data set and related materials are available at: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/

In 2024, there were around 719 million male inhabitants and 689 million female inhabitants living in China, amounting to around 1.41 billion people in total. China's total population decreased for the first time in decades in 2022, and population decline is expected to accelerate in the upcoming years. Birth control in China From the beginning of the 1970s on, having many children was no longer encouraged in mainland China. The one-child policy was then introduced in 1979 to control the total size of the Chinese population. According to the one-child policy, a married couple was only allowed to have one child. With the time, modifications were added to the policy, for example parents living in rural areas were allowed to have a second child if the first was a daughter, and most ethnic minorities were excepted from the policy. Population ageing The birth control led to a decreasing birth rate in China and a more skewed gender ratio of new births due to boy preference. Since the negative economic and social effects of an aging population were more and more felt in China, the one-child policy was considered an obstacle for the country’s further economic development. Since 2014, the one-child policy has been gradually relaxed and fully eliminated at the end of 2015. However, many young Chinese people are not willing to have more children due to high costs of raising a child, especially in urban areas.

人口数:城市:年龄:65及以上:北京在12-01-2023达2.967千人，相较于12-01-2022的2.733千人有所增长。人口数:城市:年龄:65及以上:北京数据按年更新，12-01-1997至12-01-2023期间平均值为1.243千人，共27份观测结果。该数据的历史最高值出现于12-01-2020，达2,333.618千人，而历史最低值则出现于12-01-2001，为0.895千人。CEIC提供的人口数:城市:年龄:65及以上:北京数据处于定期更新的状态，数据来源于国家统计局，数据归类于中国经济数据库的社会人口 – Table CN.GA: Population: Sample Survey: By Age and Region: City。

人口数:普查:北京在12-01-2020达21,893.095千人，相较于12-01-2010的19,612.000千人有所增长。人口数:普查:北京数据按十年更新，12-01-2000至12-01-2020期间平均值为19,612.000千人，共3份观测结果。该数据的历史最高值出现于12-01-2020，达21,893.095千人，而历史最低值则出现于12-01-2000，为13,569.194千人。CEIC提供的人口数:普查:北京数据处于定期更新的状态，数据来源于北京市统计局，数据归类于中国经济数据库的社会人口 – Table CN.GE: Population: Prefecture Level City: By Census。

城市水务:用水普及率:北京在12-01-2023达100.000%，相较于12-01-2022的99.812%有所增长。城市水务:用水普及率:北京数据按年更新，12-01-1995至12-01-2023期间平均值为100.000%，共29份观测结果。该数据的历史最高值出现于12-01-2023，达100.000%，而历史最低值则出现于12-01-2020，为98.390%。CEIC提供的城市水务:用水普及率:北京数据处于定期更新的状态，数据来源于住房和城乡建设部，数据归类于中国经济数据库的公用事业 – Table CN.RCA: Percentage of Population with Access to Water。