China has fewer people than at the start of 2022, the first decline in population since 1961.
Official figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released on Tuesday showed mainland China had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year.
More than a million fewer babies were born last year and 300,000 more people died. China’s population now stands at 1.41 billion.
The bureau reported 9.56 million births in 2022, compared to 10.62 million in 2021. Deaths rose from 10.14 million to 10.41 million.
It was not immediately clear if the population figures were affected by the Covid-19 outbreak that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading around the world.
China has been accused by some experts of underreporting deaths from the virus by blaming them on underlying conditions, but no estimates of the actual number of Covid deaths have been published.
