ENG-1963 — Page 65

42

POPULATION

crude birth rate of 32.1 per mille and a crude death rate of 5.5 per mille, on a mid-year population of 3,592,100.

For purposes of future planning, the Colony's first population projections and life tables were prepared. Details of these have been published in Population Projections, 1961-1971 and Hong Kong Life Tables, 1961-1968 respectively. It had not been possible hitherto to undertake these calculations due to the lack of suffi- ciently accurate data and to the highly fluid nature of the Colony's population prior to the Pacific War. Since then, however, the population has become gradually more stable although it has been swollen from time to time by waves of immigration. Three sets of population projections have been prepared, namely, high, medium and low projections. These calculations have been based on certain generally accepted assumptions for births, deaths and migration and are valid so long as the basic assumptions remain correct. The life tables revealed that on the whole, the chances of survival for the average woman exceed that for the average man, and that for both sexes the expectation of life is comparable with that of advanced industrial societies. A steady rise in life expecta- tion may be forecast over the next seven years for both sexes and all ages.

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. The census questions did not include nationality but the figure provided 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 1963 totalled 9,619 of whom the largest groups were American (2,593), Portuguese (2,019), Japanese (973), Filipino (506), Dutch (418), Indonesian (396), French (328), Italian (334) and German (371).

Approximately half of the urban population is now of Hong Kong birth. Most of these and the greater part of the immigrant population originated from Kwangtung 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 (principally Punti) Wai Yeung and Mui Yuen (prin- cipally Hakka), Chiuchow, Sze Yap or the so-called four Districts