The Preliminary Results of China's 1982 Census

Abstract

On 27 October 1982 the State Statistical Bureau (SSB) issued a communiqué giving the eagerly awaited preliminary results of China's third national population census, taken as of 1 July 1982. The figures consisted mainly of national data based on responses to eight of the 19 items on the census questionnaire – those that could most easily be tabulated manually by local census personnel within a short time. In December the State Council Population Census Office and the SSB Population Statistics Division published a 55-page pamphlet giving both national and provincial figures on the population by sex; by rural, urban, municipal and town residence; by educational level and literacy; on births, deaths and vital rates in 1981; on households by type and residential status; on average size of household; and national data on minorities. National figures have also been provided on the frequency of overcount and undercount in the population totals and error rates in the data on age, sex, and births and deaths in 1981. The most interesting of the national data are given in Table 1, together with comparable figures from the 1953 and 1964 censuses and from other sources for more recent years. Selected provincial data are given in Table 2.