China¿s Provinces and Populations

Eric Croddy specializes in open-source intelligence. He has written or edited four books concerning chemical and biological warfare. From 2003-2017, Eric worked as an intelligence analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, focusing on Chinese nuclear weapons programs, the People's Liberation Army Strategic Rocket Forces, and cross-strait security issues.

This manual provides an overview of China's administrative geography, history, and populations of all 31 provinces, as well as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. It focuses primarily on how the provinces came to be, how they were named, as well as their people and populations throughout history. In addition to extensive use of bilingual names (Chinese-English) for specificity, this resource is unique in the datasets contained therein: (1) Up-to-date residential populations of mainland China using the latest decennial (2020) census, and (2) political-administrative registered household (hukou) data based on official numbers provided by People's Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of Public Security  showing trends from 2012-2020. Each internally consistent, but differing in their methodologies, whereby the Census (decennial) data provide a snapshot of how many people live in a given location, and the permanent (hukou) registered household data track each individual based on their hometown, household, urban/rural status, and nationality. This book addresses this chasm which, among other issues, points to the phenomenon of China's "floating populations", where millions of Chinese spend much if not all of their time living, working, and studying outside their home provinces. By showing how the Chinese have been populated and their organization throughout history, this manual is the go to place for professionals, practitioners and academics working and interested in China's provinces and populations.