ENG-1962 — Page 56

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POPULATION

be equal to or greater than the total of the population. But as the series of calculations (ignoring this factor) made from 1949 to 1960 fall short of the census figures by only about 120,000, it seems that the error from this source is not on the average very large, though it may in some years reach or exceed 30,000.

The population increased during 1962 by 300,100 to reach the estimated total of 3,526,500. Of this increase, 91,581 was due to the excess of registered births over registered deaths and 208,500 represented the estimated nett balance of migration. The year was one in which Hong Kong was subject to almost unprecedented pressure of immigration from China. This influx, mostly by clandestine channels, is referred to in more detail in Immigration, chapter 13.

The actual number of registered births was 111,905 in 1962 compared with 108,726 in 1961; registered deaths numbered 20,324 compared with 18,738 in 1961. These figures yield for 1962 a crude birth rate of 32.8 per mille and a crude death rate of 5.9 per mille, on a mid-year population of 3,400,300.

URBAN POPULATION

The total number (except transients) claiming at the time of the census to originate from Commonwealth countries outside Hong Kong was 33,140, of whom 27,936 resided in the urban area. Those from non-Commonwealth countries, other than China, totalled 16,607 of whom 13,467 resided in the urban area. The census questions did not include nationality, but the figures pro- vided by the Aliens' Registration Office for non-Chinese alien residents (excluding visitors staying for periods less than three months and excluding children under 16 years old) at the end of 1962 totalled 8,159, of whom the largest groups were American (2,103), Portuguese (1,863), Japanese (652), Filipino (422), Dutch (386), Indonesian (329), French (323), Italian (302), German (300).

About half the urban population is now of Hong Kong birth. Most are the descendants of people who came from Kwangtung province and the greater part of the immigrant population also hail from that province. The districts of Kwangtung which have supplied the largest elements of Hong Kong's urban Chinese population are neighbouring Po On and Tung Kwun, Wai Yeung