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According to this morning's Metro Express (时代报), officials at Shanghai's Conference on Population and Family Planning declared yesterday that there were 18.15 million inhabitants of Shanghai at the end of 2006 — and that doesn't include migrant workers. The figure is said to be 2.07 million more than 2000. By 2010, the population is expected to exceed 19 million.
We also learn that each year Shanghai's population increases the size of a "mid-sized city" (the story doesn't say what a mid-sized city in China is ... but 2.07 million divided by six is 345,000 ... and that sounds more like a small Chinese village to us). People age 60 or older account for 19.6% (2.66 million) of Shanghai's registered residents, and that's the country's highest rate.
According to today's Shanghai Daily, there were 5.81 million migrant workers living in Shanghai in 2005. So, the next time someone asks you what Shanghai's population is, you can say, "Well over 20 million." Or maybe just, "A lot."
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But how far out does that count?
It would be interesting to knwo what the actual 'city' population is - if you maybe took xujaihui as south west, gubei as "north-west" (though it's not really north-west), being generous century park could be east, but go further east of the jin mao and it's no where where people would go unless they lived/worked there...
If you think of big cities elsewhere in the world, and the sheer expanse that they have of real "city" life (e.g. in London you can drive for miles and still be in city-centre life), whereas Shanghai has xujiahui, huaihai rd, nanjing rd, peoples sq... a few 'places' to go to, and then for example go one or two blocks borth of nanjing rd and what's there ... regular flats.
Trev, I completely disagree with your London comparison. How do you define "city life"? Shepherd's Bush? Sure there's Pizza Hut and pubs and a tube stop but it's only a few kilometers from The City and still dull as hell! Have you ever walked east or west from Madison Square Garden in Manhatten? Just a few blocks and it's all residential and not even skyscrapers but 5 story walkups!
Checkout the wikipedia entry for Shanghai, it puts the "urban core" population of Huangpu, Luwan, Xuhui, Changning, Jing'an Putuo, Zhabei, Hongkou, and Yangpu districts at 9,838,000. But I reckon that now Pudong should really be included in this core. It's a bit fiddly to say which divisions of Pudong should and shouldn't be counted as the city proper, but the outer reaches of Pudong district don't have so much population to make a big difference anyhow, so all of Pudong district (just what is offically called Pudong district, not the entire area of Shanghai east of the Huangpu) can be included for the sake of keeping it Simple. So adding its 1.5 million population (again according to wikipedia) that puts the "city proper" population at somewhere around 11.5 million. That's my take on it anyways.
oh, dear!!
i live in such a crowded city. unbelievable!
Sino, if you started on the river, you can go east further than holborn, and west all the way to knightsbridge, kensington ... this is a MASSIVE distance! Compare this to Bund west to the end of nanjing rd and it's about 10 times the size.
Also, walk from the river north, as far as king's cross, and then you can drive north from king's cross for about 20 mins and still be in bustling strret / restaurant / shop territory.
It is worthless to just compare in this way, but I just don't feel like Shanghai is a true "city", if you do compare it to the scale of other cities. (and I'm not even going to venture into the field of culture, ethnicity, arts, finance, etc. etc. in the scale that Shanghai is like a baby city)