section_path: Demographics
section_name: Demographics
paragraph_text: Demographics
  
  In 2021, Beijing had a total population of 21.89 million within the municipality, of which 19.16 million (87.5 percent) resided in urban districts or suburban townships and 2.73 million (12.5) lived in rural villages. The encompassing metropolitan area was estimated by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) to have, as of 2010, a population of 24.9 million.
  
  Within China, the city ranked second in urban population after Shanghai and the third in municipal population after Shanghai and Chongqing. Beijing also ranks among the most populous cities in the world, a distinction the city has held for much of the past 800 years, especially during the 15th to early 19th centuries when it was the largest city in the world.
  
  About 13 million of the city's residents in 2013 had local hukou permits, which entitles them to permanent residence in Beijing. The remaining 8 million residents had hukou permits elsewhere and were not eligible to receive some social benefits provided by the Beijing municipal government.
  
  The population increased in 2013 by 455,000 or about 7% from the previous year and continued a decade-long trend of rapid growth. The total population in 2004 was 14.213 million. The population gains are driven largely by migration. The population's rate of natural increase in 2013 was a mere 0.441%, based on a birth rate of 8.93 and a mortality rate of 4.52. The gender balance was 51.6% males and 48.4% females.
  
  Working age people account for nearly 73.6% of the population. Compared to 2004, residents age 0–14 as a proportion of the population dropped from 9.95% to 9.92% in 2013, but again increased to 12.1% in 2021. Residents over the age of 65 declined from 11.12% to 8.58%, but increased to 14.2% in 2021. From 2002 to 2011, the percentage of city residents with at least some college education nearly doubled, from 20.4% to 37.3%, and further increased to 49.1% by 2021. About 66.4% have senior secondary school education and 88.2% had reached middle school.
  
  According to the 2010 census, nearly 96% of Beijing's population are ethnic Han Chinese. Of the 800,000 ethnic minority population living in the capital, Manchu (336,000), Hui (249,000), Korean (77,000), Mongol (37,000) and Tujia (24,000) constitute the five largest groups. In addition, there were 8,045 Hong Kong residents, 500 Macau residents, and 7,772 Taiwan residents along with 91,128 registered foreigners living in Beijing. A study by the Beijing Academy of Sciences estimates that in 2010 there were on average 200,000 foreigners living in Beijing on any given day including students, business travellers and tourists that are not counted as registered residents.
  
  In 2017 the Chinese government implemented population controls for Beijing and Shanghai to fight what it called the "big city disease" which includes congestion, pollution, and shortages of education and health care services. From this policy, Beijing's population declined by 20,000 from 2016 to 2017. Some low-income people are being forcibly removed from the city as both legal and illegal housing is being demolished in some high-density residential neighborhoods. The population is being redistributed to Jing-Jin-Ji and Xiong'an New Area, the transfer to the latter expected to include 300,000-500,000 people working in government research, universities, and corporate headquarters.