Hong Kong Demographic trendsadministrative region, China Chinese (Pinyin) Xianggang or (Wade-Giles) Hsiang-Kang

Physical and human geography » The people » Demographic trends

As in many large urban centres of the world, Hong Kong’s population has increased in the late 20th century. Since the 1950s the average annual rate of growth has fluctuated between about 2 and 4 percent, the variations in some degree based on the sporadic flow of immigrants from China. Immigration has been a chief cause of population increase, but it was slowed through changes in immigration policy in 1980 and 1982, and emigration rose from the late 1980s. Birth rates have steadily declined since the late 1950s, the rate of natural increase falling below 1 percent by the 1980s. Life expectancy, however, has been showing a gradual increase. Since the 1950s, the proportion of the population under 15 has decreased rapidly, while that between 15 and 64 has shown a marked increase and the group over 65 has more than doubled. Hong Kong is one of the world’s most densely populated places.

Citations

MLA Style:

"Hong Kong." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 09 Jan. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/270971/Hong-Kong>.

APA Style:

Hong Kong. (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 09, 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/270971/Hong-Kong

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.

If you think a reference to this article on "Hong Kong" will enhance your Web site, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.

You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.

copy link

We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.

Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.

A-Z Browse

Image preview