The size of Chinese family keeps on shrinking; more people moving and settling down in cities; the aging of people accelerating and the sex ratio becoming more balanced, according to census data released by the country's statistics bureau on Wednesday.

The sample census, covering one percent of the whole population, began nationwide at 12:00 on November 1, 2005 and ended in early 2006.

The number of households under coverage was 5,391,013. On average, there were 3.13 persons in each family, compared with 3.44 persons in the previous census in 2000. And the figure in 1990 was 3.92 persons in each family.

The sample census results showed that of all the sampled population, 8,585,000 were males and 8,401,000 were female. The sex ratio was about 102.2 males per 100 females in 2005. The situation in 2000 was 106.74 males per 100 females.

Urban population, including people living in cities and towns, accounted for 44.8 percent, a growth of 8.7 percentage points over the last census.

The Han people still take overwhelming majority of the population, accounting for 90.75 percent of the total, which was slightly lower than the 91.95 percent for the previous census. The population of Zhuang and Yi nationalities ranked the first and second in the minorities, accounting for 1.37 percent and 0.79 percent, respectively.

As for age, the 0-14, 15-64 and 65 and above age groups take proportion of 19.55 percent, 71.4 percent and 9.1 percent separately. The census saw a fall of 3.34 percentage points in the population of 0-14 age group and an increase of 2.14 percentage points in that of 65 and above age group.

But the sample census did not release the updated population of the country.

The sample census, measuring age, gender, distribution, education, income and marital condition, was aimed to make clearer China's population and the citizen's structure and qualities.

The country had carried out five national censuses in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990 and 2000 since it was founded in 1949.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2008)