There were 6,949,800 people living in Dongguan at the end of 2008. Of them, 748,700 were local people and 5,201,100 long-term migrants from other parts of China. At the 2010 Census the population had grown to 8,220,237. The number reached 8.29 million by the end of 2012. The average age of the population was 30.82.