ENG-1960 — Page 58

2

Population

THE total population of the Colony at the end of 1960 was estimated to be over 3 million people, of whom more than 99% was Chinese.

Two estimates of the actual numbers are available. The addition of the recorded natural increase and of the recorded net migration to last year's estimate of the civilian population gives a figure of 3,014,000 at the end of 1960. The Census Department, established in 1959, has undertaken two sample surveys of the population (one of the boat people in January 1960 and one of the land population in October) and has made other connected demographic studies; from these it estimates that the overall population in October 1960 was 3,190,000.

The two estimates are not incompatible and, although the latter may be made on sounder evidence, the method of estimation will remain unchanged until the full population census is held in March 1961. The officially accepted figure for the civilian population at the end of 1960 is therefore 3,014,000, although it may be an underestimate.

The last census in 1931 found the civilian population to be 840,473. Another census should have been held in 1941, but the unsettled conditions which followed the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the fluctuations in population after the attack on Canton in 1938, and later the Japanese invasion of the Colony, caused the plan to be abandoned. The influx of immigrants to which Hong Kong has been subject since the end of the war has been one of the main considerations to make the holding of a census impracticable before now.

An unofficial count by wardens before the Japanese attack in 1941 put the population at about 1,600,000. This number fell greatly during the occupation and the total probably amounted to less than 600,000 when the Colony was liberated in August 1945. The population grew rapidly again with peace, and by the end