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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1976
HONG KONG POPULATION EXCEEDS 4.4 MILLION
******
A SPOKESMAN FOR THE CENSUS AND STATISTICS DEPARTMENT SA ID TODAY THAT A PROVISIONAL COUNT OF THE OVERALL RESULTS OF THE 1976 BY-CENSUS SHOWED A TOTAL POPULATION OF HONG KONG OF 4,407,000 AS AT AUGUST 2, 1976, ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST THOUSAND. THE BROAD GEOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF THE POPULATION WITH 1971 CENSUS RESULTS FOR COMPARISON, IS AS FOLLOWS :-
AREA
1971 CENSUS *
% OF
TOTAL
1976 BY-CENSUS *
% OF TOTAL
HONG KONG ISLAND 996,000
25.2
1,026,000
23.3
KOWLOON
716,000
18.1
748,000
17.0
NEW KOWLOON
1,479,000
37.5
1,619,000
36.7
NEW TERRITORIES
666,000
16.9
938,000
21.3
MARINE
80,000
2.0
59,000
1.3
TRANSIENTS
11,000
0.3
17,000
0.4
TOTAL
3,948,000
100.0
4,407,000
100.0
* FIGURES ARE ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST THOUSAND.
OF THE TOTAL INCREASE OF 459,000 PERSONS OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS, 272,000 (59.3 PER CENT OF THE TOTAL INCREASE) WAS RECORDED IN NEW TERRITORIES, OF WHICH 183,000 RELATED TO TSUEN WAN NEW TOWN. AN INCREASE OF 140,000 (30.5 PER CENT OF THE TOTAL INCREASE) WAS RECORDED FOR NEW KOWLOON, WITH LEI YUE MUN CONTRIBUTING THE LARGEST SHARE (109,000).
THE SPOKESMAN NOTED THAT THE OVERALL POPULATION FIGURE NOW PRODUCED COMPARED CLOSELY WITH THE DEPARTMENT'S MEDIUM PROJECTION FOR MID-1976 (4,417,800) AND THE 1976 MID-YEAR POPULATION ESTIMATE (4,382,500).
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