When the Silla kingdom reached the peak of its development, Gyeongju was estimated to have a million residents, four times the city's population in 2008. In recent years, Gyeongju has followed the same trends that have affected the rest of South Korea. Like the country as a whole, Gyeongju has seen its population age and the size of families shrink. For instance, the mean household size is 2.8 people. Because this has fallen in recent years, there are more households in the city as of 2008 (105,009) than there were in 2003, even though the population has fallen.