China begins 7th national population census

BEIJING - China on Sunday started its seventh national population count, with about 7 million census takers going door to door to document demographic changes in the world's most populous country.

Carrying out the census is critical to understand the population size, structure and distribution, said Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a video conference to promote the national census.

The census collects data including name, ID number, gender, marital status, education and profession of Chinese citizens.

Huang Chenglin, a staffer with the census office of Liangqing district in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, came to a community on Sunday morning to help residents use a registration service. Under the guidance of Huang, the whole registration process only takes a few minutes.

There are more than 3,000 census takers like Huang in the district, among over 280,000 in the autonomous region.

Residents are encouraged to use mobile terminals to report personal and family information.

"With just a few clicks on your smartphone, you can fill in all the census information. It's very convenient," said Wei Ziqing, a resident in Liangqing district.

China has conducted a national population census every 10 years since the 1990s. The previous census found its population had increased to 1.37 billion.