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Urban population over 600m; urbanization rate 45.68%

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-08-24 11:44

China's urban population reached 607 million people at the end of 2008, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development announced Sunday, according to Xinhua.

The country's urbanization rate was 45.68 percent - a huge increase from just 10 percent when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.

China's total population is now over 1.30 billion, and the country's annual population growth rate was estimated to be 0.95 percent.

In the long term, China's urbanization rate is unlikely to slow down. The National Bureau of Statistics predicts that nearly 70 percent of China’s population will live in urban areas by 2050.