Contrary to what many may think, most of China is hardly populated

Contrary to what many may think, only 45% of China’s land is properly populated. Roughly speaking, 55% of China’s land is empty.

Of the total population of 1.33 billion people, as many as 1.26 billion live in the South and South east, while the North and Northwest are hardly populated at all. This translates into 45% of China’s territory being home to 95% of people, with the remaining 55% of the territory containing only 5% of the population. To illustrate my point, light coloured areas on the map below comprise 55 percent of the country’s land area, but contain only about 5 percent of its population.