ENG-1961 — Page 42

REVIEW

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excluding the armed forces, were living in what used to be called the City of Victoria and no less than 269,178 in what is virtually a new city since 1950-North Point from Causeway Bay eastwards to the former small fishing village of Shau Kei Wan, now a flourish- ing industrial area. Aberdeen, the oldest inhabited place on Hong Kong Island, has 16,690 shore dwellers, 27,479 boat people and 8,692 on Ap Lei Chau on the other side of Aberdeen harbour. Kowloon proper has now outstripped Victoria with 726,976 people, and is in its turn surpassed by New Kowloon, which at the last census had 22,634 people and now has 852,849 of whom 748,518 are in the main built-up area.

The New Territories have grown from 98,000 people in 1931 to 409,945 in 1961, and this now includes several sizable towns of which the largest is Tsuen Wan with 61,106. The boat people show the lowest rate of increase, from 70,000 in 1931 to 138,320 in 1961, which no doubt reflects the heavy losses they suffered during the war.

In the whole Colony besides the six centres of population already mentioned there are six other towns of ten thousand or more inhabitants, six with five thousand but under ten, and ten with two thousand but under five. And there are 901 villages of which 624 have less than two hundred inhabitants. There is, of course, a tendency for villages adjoining towns to become swallowed up in the towns, but the more remote villages show considerable vitality and the total village population is greater than in any previous census.

It is a young population. (See graph opposite). Out of a total of 3,133,131 of all ages, 1,277,088 (40.8%) are under 15 and of those again no less than 500,726 (16.0% of all ages) are under five. But from our young people there is half a generation missing. In the age group from 13 to 27 inclusive, that is those born between 7th March 1934 and 6th March 1948, there are about 177,000 males and 164,000 females less than the other pro- portions of the population require (see ‘age-group' diagram facing page 24); and this deficiency is most marked in the ages 15 to 20 inclusive, where the numbers missing exceed the survivors. This is the generation on whom lay most heavily the privations of the years 1938 to 1945, and the scar which marks the amputation of