ABSTRACT

Although China has some of the oldest population records in the world, the number of inhabitants living on the Chinese mainland at any one time has always been a matter of speculation. In 1953 the communists carried out what they refer to as the "first modem census" of China, on the basis of which they reported the population of the Chinese mainland at almost 583 million. The overwhelming proportion of the total Chinese population lives on hardly more than 10 per cent of the land area that is presently under cultivation. Despite the political and economic upheavals of the past decade, the spatial redistribution of the Chinese population has been insignificant, especially when viewed in relation to a total population of some 650 million. The improvements in the health conditions of the Chinese population are undeniable. Through intensive propaganda, some semblance of sanitation has been introduced even into the rural areas of China.