The Statistics Bureau of Guangdong Province has released census data from last year, and we’re going to generalize it this way: the average Guangdong resident is male, married, lives in the city, is getting older, and has many friends in the same boat.

The 2013 provincial census is full of rather alarming statistics, none more shocking that the wide discrepancy that exists between the sexes: there are 55.4 million male residents compared to only 50.9 million females., a difference of 4.5 million, reported the Nandu. 

If you think living in the PRD is a great idea, many other people think so too. There are 57.1 million people living in the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta, an increase of 0.45% from the year before. They constitute 53.69% of the province’s permanent residents.

Moving to the city is tremendously popular in Guangdong. 72.1 million people live in cities while only 34.3 million people live in the countryside, a ratio of 67.76% to 32.24%. Last year, 720,100 people moved to the city, an annual growth rate of 1.01%.

The province has 106.4 million permanent provincial residents with an average population density of 593 people per square kilometer. The annual population growth rate of 0.47% has slowed down a bit, but this hasn’t made getting married any easier.

Married residents comprise the bulk of Guangdong’s population at 68.51%, while the unmarried population stands at 26.32%. Divorced residents comprise 0.81% of the population, of which widowers comprise a total of 4.36%. While there has been an increase in every other category, unmarried people continue to shrink as a group at a loss of 0.88%.

As well, Guangdong’s elderly population continues to grow, and for the first time ever comprises over 8% of the total population of the province. There are 8.6 million people over 65 in Guangdong, an increase of 1.2 million from the previous year, signifying a 16.26% increase in annual growth.

We’re not sure where the growing number of urban men will find their brides as the population continues to get older, but then they’ll likely get wisdom from their elders on how to find a date.

Photo: Nandu, dahe

People’s Online Daily reports that Guangzhou geochemistry studies researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science Kuang Yaoqiu is a very worried man. Kuang sees the ability of the Pearl River Delta to continually attract people as a “glass half empty, half full” situation.

It’s always nice to make new friends as more and more expats leave the smoggy cities of the north for the south, but Kuang is especially concerned about Pearl River Delta cities reaching their breaking point in terms of resources.

Kuang says that the total population of the combined cities of Guangzhou, Foshan, Shenzhen, and Dongguan make up 70 percent of the entire population of the PRD. As such, the population density has already reached a point, seemingly, of no return. Kuang said:

“Overpopulation is pushing cities to the verge of their limits: backed up traffic, environmental pollution, deficient educational resources, and overcrowding are all putting the city into misalignment.”

And so, Kuang has unveiled some statistics based upon the 2010 census. Here they are:

The first two graphs compare population and population density of PRD cities with those of Japan with censuses from 2010 and 2000. And then, as seen on the third graph, we have these startling revelations:

1. The area with the highest population density in the world is Shenzhen’s Luohu District at 56,482 people per square kilometer.
2. The second ranked most dense are by population is Hong Kong’s Guantang district at 56,303 people per square kilometer.
3. Next is – again – the city of Shenzhen, whose Yantian District has a population density at 56,004 people per square kilometer.
4. The fourth highest population density in the world is Yuexiu District of Guangzhou with 52,834 people per square kilometer.
5. And then it’s Taiwan’s Xinbei city, in which the Yonghe District has a population density of 40,568 people per square kilometer.

For comparison, Shanghai’s Hongkou District is ranked at having a population density of 36,000 people per square kilometer, while New York City’s Manhattan is listed as only having 26,000 people per square kilometer.

Sounds all very renao; at any given moment, it sounds like a party/fight can break out. We had to triple check it, but yes, that chart does in fact say “Cities Ranked by Population Density Worldwide” and does not just represent those for “China”.

But while these numbers sound incredible, the hype is a little more manageable when taken as a city. The average population density of the Pearl River Delta is 2,722 people per square km. When taken as an entire city, the total average population density for Shenzhen is 13,290 people per square km.

Before you start to complain about the waidiren coming into our neighborhoods and stealing our jobs, it bears mentioning that no city of the Pearl River Delta made it into a list of the 50 most dense international cities by population, the one exception being Macau which has a population density of 19,796 people per square kilometer, and is ranked at number 36.

By contrast, the world’s highest ranked city in terms of population density is Manilla, Philippines. There, the population density is 42,857 people per square kilometer in which they manage to squeeze 1.6 million residents into only 38.5 square kilometers. Now, that’s renao—for sure there’s a hotpot and karaoke going on at all times in that place.

Yes, it appears that you can skew numbers around to fit whatever argument you have, especially one that is with good intentions. But, it’s never about the numbers.

Numbers don’t lie; they just add up.

Photo: People’s Daily Online, iFeng

According to the “2013 Guangzhou Economic Analysis and Forecast,” considering its size and what it needs to function as a city, the ideal population from the point-of-view of the pursuit of per capita GDP is 8.07 million. The ideal population from the point-of-view of the pursuit of social development is 12.75 million. However, the population had already reached 13.55 million by the end of 2011, Yangcheng Evening News reported last week.

This over-population is causing problems such as resource shortages, pollution, and traffic congestion that could cause the city’s development to bottleneck.

The report then sets out three rather vague ways of tackling the problem: make adjustments to the city’s industrial structure; improve people’s livelihoods, and improve the calibre of workers migrating to the city.

Also, Guangzhou’s service sector needs to be increased as a percentage of the economy, according to the report. The 2011 figure of 65% is below the international average of 70.9% and way below that of more advanced cities such as Hong Kong at 92.6% in 2010 when this was last measured.