BEIJING, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Experts in urban population trends predict that nearly 90 percent of Beijing residents will be living in suburban areas by 2020, state media reported Friday.
Xinhua quoted Ma Xiaohong, an authority from the Beijing Municipal Population Institute, as saying that recent urban planning and expansion of the city had a large impact on demographic change.
Data from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for household registration, state the Chinese capital's official population as 14.49 million in 2004.
Beijing Municipality, roughly half the size of Belgium, has 2.09 million residents in the four city districts at the urban core, 7.23 million in the surrounding suburban districts, and another 5.17 million living in outlying districts and counties.
The Public Security Bureau forecasts Beijing's population to be 17.64 million in 2020. The urban core will drop to 1.93 million inhabitants, about 11 percent of the total.
The surrounding suburbs will jump to 10.33 million, accounting for 58.5 percent of the city's population. The outer districts will be 5.38 million, about 30.5 percent of Beijing's residents.
