Forms of Chinese census have been held since antiquity and throughout the imperial period. Modern censuses under the Republic and People's Republic of China were initially irregular. From 1990, the National Population Census of the People's Republic of China has been held decennially at the end of each decade.
Full censuses were held irregularly under imperial China, although local headmen were normally required to maintain accurate running counts of nearby households to meet tax and corvee obligations in a fair manner.[1] The census then consisted of prefectural, provincial, and national officials systematically gathering, computing, and recording the tallies held by lower levels of the administration.[2]
Much of the census held by the Western Han in AD2 was preserved in its dynastic history, the Book of Han,[3] and it is held by modern scholars to have been quite accurate.[4][5][6] On that occasion, taking only taxable families into account to calculate proper revenue and available soldiers,[5] the empire was reckoned to have 57,671,400 individuals in 12,366,470 households. From that time to end of the Qing in 1911, 104 national censuses were conducted, roughly one every 15 years outside of prolonged periods of instability from 158–262 during the late Han and Three Kingdoms periods, from 371–463 during the late Jin and early Northern and Southern dynasties, and from 847–958 during the late Tang and early Five Dynasties.[7] Of those 104 censuses, 54 included both individual and household totals, producing average household sizes of 5–6 individuals.[8]
A Tang census in 742 reported the population of the prefecture around the capital Chang'an as nearly 2 million. The city itself was said to have around a million people within its walls.
Censuses of the Republic of China
The Republic of China never held a full national census during its period of control over mainland China.[9] Based on surveys, however, it released a number of official population figures from its Ministry of Home Affairs and its Ministry of the Interior:
Official ROC Population Estimates
Year Made
Population (Mainland China only)
1912
405,800,000
1928
441,800,000
1931
474,780,000
1936
471,100,000
1947
461,000,000
Based on the more complete and apparently accurate 1953 PRC census, the earlier ROC enumerations are now considered to have significantly undercounted the Chinese population since the differences involved would otherwise indicate an extremely improbable growth rate throughout World War II and the Chinese Civil War and an impossible growth rate in the late 1940s.[10]
Censuses of the People's Republic of China
Under Mao Zedong, the People's Republic of China held its first census in 1952, but—owing to the disruption created by various policies of the Great Leap Forward—the second in 1963 was secret and unacknowledged until the early 1980s.
The 1982 Chinese census was much more thorough and well-conducted than the first two, and similar censuses have been conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020.[11] These are the world's biggest censuses and over 6 million enumerators were engaged in the 2000[citation needed] and 2010 censuses.
Between the national censuses, 1% National Population Sample Surveys were taken in 1987, 1995, and 2005; 0.1% National Population Sample Surveys have been taken annually since 2000.[12] National agricultural, economic, and industrial censuses are also taken on a regular basis. The first economic census was taken in 2004 and the second 2008.[13]
↑ Twitchett, D., Loewe, M., and Fairbank, J.K. Cambridge History of China: The Ch'in and Han Empires 221 B.C.–A.D. 220. Cambridge University Press (1986), p. 240.
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405,800,000
441,800,000
471,100,000