Babies participate in a baby crawling contest at a shopping center in Daxing District, Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Xin)

 
Some 31 provincial level regions in China have released their 2023 population data, with 11  reporting positive growth, local media reported on Wednesday. 

Among them, East China’s Zhejiang Province took the top spot with a population increase of 500,000 from last year. South China’s Guangdong Province and South China’s Hainan Province followed with an increase of 490,000 and 161,900 people respectively, Chinese business and financial media outlet Yicai reported on Wednesday. 

Municipalities of Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin came fourth, eighth and ninth respectively in the list of China's positive population growth in 2023. 

The 11 provincial level regions with positive population growth last year witnessed a population increase totaling 1.6025 million people, Yicai quoted data as saying. Of these, Zhejiang and Guangdong saw a combined population increase of 990,000 people last year. 

The reasons for positive population growth, however, vary in these 11 provincial level regions, observers said. 

Some of the 11 provincial level regions with positive population growth are mainly attributed to their net population inflows, including East China’s Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province and Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta, as well as Beijing and Tianjin in North China, the Yicai report noted. 

Some are primarily driven by a natural increase, as exemplified by the Southwest China's Guizhou Province. Others are explained by a combination of natural and migration growth, like Guangdong, Yicai said. 

Some 29 provincial level regions released their newborn population, with Guangdong, Central China’s Henan Province and the East China’s Shandong placing in the top three, the report said. 

Guangdong is now the only provincial level region with more than one million births for a fourth consecutive year, and the most child-raising provincial level region for the sixth consecutive year. In terms of birth rate, Guangdong reached 8.12‰ last year, which lies at the top of the list, as indicated by figures released by the relevant authorities. 

Owing to the fact that the total inflow of people from outside Guangdong Province amounts with a very large size and that those who have arrived are youths, who are in marriage and child-bearing ages, Yicai quoted an expert as saying. 

Meanwhile, people in areas like Chaoshan in the eastern part of Guangdong and Zhanjiang in the western part of Guangdong continue to be quite child-ready as a result of the traditional birth culture, regardless of the fact that the fertility rate has declined in recent years, the expert said.