Geography Reference
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Figure 2.3 Human population of China's western provinces and regions, 1949-2000.
Data from UNESCAP (2004) and China Map Publishers (1984). Data for Tibet
supplemented from Grunfeld (1996). Interpolations for years with data for only
some provinces by author.
25
20
15
10
5
0
1949
1959
1969
1979
1989
1999
Gansu
Inner Mongolia
Ningxia
Qinghai
Tibet
Xinjiang
considerably in their area, I present the data expressed as densities in Figure 2.4. China
has a total area of 11.1 million km 2 , so at 1.3 billion people, overall mean density is ap-
proximately 117 people/km 2 . But within these six western provinces, mean population
density in 2004 was approximately 20/km 2 , whereas in the remainder of China it was
approximately 176/km 2 . By contrast, in the conterminous U.S. states, mean population
density in 1999 was approximately 28 people/km 2 , and in Canada was about 3/km 2 . Figure
2.5 provides approximate yearly growth rates, which gives some insight into periods in
which immigration from other provinces peaked, at times government mandated, at times
arising from personal hardships and the search for a better life. The famine of 1959-61
is reflected in the lowered growth rates during that time, particularly notable in the case
of Gansu. All these data sources are subject to error (and particularly in the case of Tibet,
are probably incomplete because they do not necessarily include military personnel or
temporary workers), but it is clear that the growth rates of all six provinces (with the
possible exception of Tibet, if these figures are reliable, and possibly Qinghai) are far too
high to be explained by birth and mortality rates alone.
Clearly then, for the latter part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, west-
ern China has experienced growth rates of human populations more similar to those of
developing countries than to China's own more developed, eastern regions. That itself
 
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