The Information Office of the Zhejiang provincial government hosted a news conference in the provincial capital of Hangzhou on May 13 to release its findings from the seventh national population census.

To date, Zhejiang's permanent residential population stands at 64.56 million, an increase of 10.14 million from 2010, the second largest growth among all Chinese provinces.

An average family household in Zhejiang has 2.35 persons, down 0.27 persons from 2010. The downsizing in family scale is mainly due to the increase of immigrant families and the growing trend of young people moving out after their marriage.

The gender ratio of male to female among the province's permanent residents is now 109.04:100. The ratio in 2010 was 105.69:100. According to preliminary analysis, the rise of the ratio is mainly due to the fact that nearly 60 percent of the province's immigrants are males.

Of the province's permanent residents, 8.68 million, or 13.45 percent, are aged below 14, and 12.07 million, or 18.7 percent, are aged above 60. The latter percentage is 4.81 percentage points higher than in 2010. The aging society is a result of the province's constantly increasing lifespan and relatively low fertility rate over the past decade.

The top four most populous cities in Zhejiang are now sequentially Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Ningbo, and Jinhua, and their combined population makes up 58.8 percent of the province's aggregate. Hangzhou's permanent residential population now stands at 11.936 million, accounting for 18.49 percent of the province's total. In 2010, the top four cities were sequentially Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Taizhou.

Among the province's permanent residents, 10.97 million, or 16.99 percent, have college degrees or higher qualifications, a significant improvement compared to the 9.33 percent in 2010.

Visitors flock to a popular tourist attraction in Changxing county, Zhejiang province, on the night of May 3. [Photo/IC]