1. Williamson, J. G., “Migration and urbanisation,” in Chenery, H. and Srinivasan, T. N. (eds.), Handbook of Development Economics, Vol. 1 (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1988), pp. 425–465.Google Scholar

2. For example, official data indicate that China's urban population increased by about 370 million during the period 1983–89, which made the urban share in China's total population increase from about 20 to 50 per cent within only seven years (see Table 1).

3. See the section on “Estimation of China's rural-to-urban migration” for the “residual method.”

4. For a detailed examination of various spatial patterns of China's urban administrative division, see Ma, Laurence J. C., “Mainland China's urban population and urbanization level,” Population Studies (Taiwan), No. 12 (1989), pp. 1–27.Google Scholar

5. Table 1 shows that UNAP share in UP for cities was about 90% in 1949–53, indicating that those engaged in fanning accounted for about 10% of UP. This is a fairly reasonable share since, by the end of this period, the Soviet-style central planning had not been established and pre-1949 urban boundaries had not been touched.

6. In fact, no matter if an urban area (bounded by B) contains an officially defined “urban proper” (the area bounded by A), or if the official “urban proper” is the same as the “real” one, a “real” urban area always exists (theoretically within A*), and administratively changing urban boundary will only affect the area A*B.

7. The series reported in this table are reconstructed. The available UP series is from 1953 to 1990 and UNAP series is from 1961 to 1990. To cover the entire post–1949 history, the 1949–60 UNAP and 1949–52 UP for both cities and towns have been extrapolated by running regression using other relevant official series as arguments. The regression model and results are available on request.

8. See Tiejun Cheng and Mark Selden, “The origins and social consequences of China's hukou system,” in this issue of The China Quarterly.

9. In fact, until 1955, no urban criteria were officially given. Since the urban criteria issued jan in 1955 were drafted in 1953 based on Soviet models ( Kojima, , Urbanisation and Urban Problems in China (Tokyo: Institute of Development Economics, 1987), p. 4)Google Scholar, and were similar to those used by the 1953 census, this article treats the 1955 criteria as 1953 census criteria.

10. See Population Research Centre, CASS (PRC), Almanac of China's Population 1985 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1986), pp. 91–94.Google Scholar

11. Department of Population Statistics, Chinese State Statistical Bureau (CSSB) (DPS), Zhongguo renkou tongji nianjian (Chinese Population Statistical Yearbook) (Beijing: Kexue jishu wenxian chubanshe, 1989), p. 155Google Scholar; and Rong, Ma, “Xiaochengzhen de fazhan yu Zhongguo de xiandaihua” (“Development of small cities and towns and Chinese modernization”), Zhongguo shehui kexue (Chinese Social Science), No. 4 (1990), p. 134.Google Scholar

12. PRC, Almanac of China's Population 1985, pp. 96–97.Google Scholar

13. Figures are quoted from DPS, Chinese Population Statistical Yearbook, p. 155 and Ma Rong, “Development of small towns and cities and Chinese modernization,” p. 134. Small cities not meeting the new criteria were reclassified as towns, and towns that did not meet the minimum standard were reclassified as rural areas and transferred to the jurisdiction of communes.

14. This figure was reported directly by the census authority and was recently reconfirmed by the CSSB (see CSSB, Zhongguo tongji nianjian (Chinese Statistical Yearbook) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1981), p. 93).Google Scholar However, it is different from the corresponding UP in Table 1 reported by DPS, but close to the estimated UNAP.

15. This figure was reported directly by the census authority, and it is close to the UNAP figure in Table 1. Both CSSB and DPS later reported this year's “urban population” as 129.5 million (UP, Table 1), which includes “urban” agricultural population based on the 1964 criteria for “urban place.”

16. See, for example, Goldstein, Sidney, “Urbanisation in China: new insights from the 1982 census,” Papers of the East-West Population Institute, No. 93 (1985)Google Scholar; Wing, Chan Kam and Xueqiang, Xu, “Urban population growth and urbanisation in China since 1949: reconstructing a baseline,” The China Quarterly, No. 104 (1985), pp. 583–613Google Scholar; and Banister, Judith, “An analysis of recent data on the population of China,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1984), pp. 241–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. State Council Census Office (SCCO) and DPS (1982), Zhongguo disanci renkou pucha de zhuyao shuzi (Main Figures of China's Third Population Census) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1982), pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

18. Ibid. pp. 1–2.

19. The figure was reported by the 1982 census conducted on the first of July 1982 and is slightly different from the year-end figure presented in Table 1.

20. See, for example, Coale, Ansley J., Rapid Population Change in China, 1952–1982, Report No. 27 (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Banister, “An analysis of recent data on the population of China,” and Goldstein, “Urbanisation in China.”

21. For part of the 1982 criteria adjusted series, the CSSB data are different from DPS data. Assuming that the more specialized DPS provides a more reliable estimate, we use DPS data as official “UP” in Table 1.

22. Banister, Ibid. p. 264 and Goldstein, Ibid. p. 16.

23. To see the difference, one may compare the UNAP (the 1964 criteria) and UP (the 1982 criteria) for the increase in 1982 in Table 1.

24. Chan Kam Wing and Xu Xueqiang, “Urban population growth and urbanisation in China since 1949.”

25. See, for example, Goldstein, “Urbanisation in China.”

26. Department of Social Statistics, CSSB (DSS), Zhongguo laodong gongzi tongji ziliao, 1949–1985 (Chinese Labour and Wage Statistics) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1987), pp. 110–111.Google Scholar

27. Of the 11 million people, 6.3 million permanently (one year or more) lived somewhere that was not the place they had their hukou registered, and 4.8 million had no hukou at all (officially called “hukou is still to be settled”). Only 0.2 million were reported as living in the particular place for less than one year but absent continuously from their hukou place for more than one year. 57,000 were reported as living overseas (SCCO and DPS, Main Figures of China's Third Population Census, pp. 8–9).

28. See Jiye, Wang and Yuanzhen, Zhu (eds.), Jingji tizhi gaige shouce (Handbook of Economic System Reform) (Beijing: Jingji ribao chubanshe, 1987), p. 829.Google Scholar

29. Weizhi, Wang, “Guanyu chengxiang huafen biaozhun yu chengzhen renkou tongji wenti” (“On ‘urban-rural criteria’ and urban population statistics”), Renkou yu jingji (Population and Economy), No. 3 (1990), pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

30. DCS (Department of Comprehensive Statistics, CSSB), Zhongguo chengshi tongji nianjian, 1985 (Chinese Urban Statistical Yearbook), pp. 27–45.

31. The town criterion was actually changed by local governments before it was officially approved in the wave of town establishment in the first half of 1984, during which about 2,000 towns were created. The proposal to change the town definition criteria was made by the Civil Administration Ministry in October 1984 as a response to this wave (see PRC, Almanac of China's Population 1985, pp. 98–99).

32. Ibid. p. 845.

33. According to Ma, following this policy, the population in the villages under town administration have been counted into town population since 1984 (Ma Rong, “Development of small towns and cities and Chinese modernisation,” p. 132), but this has not been affirmed by any available official document. In fact, only the 1984 town criterion itself is enough to decrease towns’ UNAP share (Table 3).

34. The new criteria were designed by the Civil Ministry and approved by the State Council in April 1986. See Tiezhen, Zhu and Zailun, Zhang (eds.), Zhongguo chengshi shouce (Handbook of Chinese Cities) (Beijing: Jingji kexue chubanshe, 1987), p. 46.Google Scholar

35. DCS, Chinese Urban Statistical Yearbook, 1986, p. 10; 1987, p. 12; 1988, p. 16; 1989, p. 14; and CSSB, Chinese Statistical Yearbook, 1990, p. 93.

36. ESCAP, “China: regulation set for new city set up,” Population Headliners, No. 188 (1990), p. 3.Google Scholar

37. Goldstein, Sidney, “Urbanisation in China, 1982–87: effects of migration and reclassification,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1990), pp. 673–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. In fact, most of those authors who accepted the CSSB's 1982 criteria adjusted series have not been, or have avoided, working with the part of the series after 1983–84. Those who have done so have warned that the use of these statistics to measure changes in urbanization should be with “great caution” ( Yi, Zeng and Vaupel, James W., “The impact of urbanisation and delayed childbearing on population growth and aging in China,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1989), pp. 427–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar) since they can be “seriously misleading” (Goldstein, “Urbanisation in China: 1982–1987”).

39. See Zhang Jianhong and Wu Yelun, “Yao jiejue laodong jiuye zhongde ‘jinqin fanzhi’ wenti” (“The ‘inbreeding’ problem in labour employment must be solved”), Juece yu xinxi (Decision-Making and Information), 21 January 1991.

40. Yiyong, Yang “Jinjinian chengzhen daiyelu shangsheng de yuanyin ji duice” (“The factors pushing urban unemployment rate up in recent years”), Jingji yuce yu xinxi (Economic Forecasting and Information), No. 7 (1991), pp. 8–9, 24.Google Scholar

41. State Council, “Guanyu nongmin jinru jizhen luohu wenti de tongzhi, 1984” (“A circular on the issue of peasants migrating to market towns”), in PRC, Almanac of China's Population, 1985, p. 90.

42. Chengrui, Li (ed.), Tongji gongzuo shouce (The Handbook of Statistical Work) (Beijing: Zhongguo caizheng jingji chubanshe, 1986), p. 685.Google Scholar See further discussion in conclusion section.

43. Wenjun, Guo, “Renkou zengzhang de dier gaofeng yu chengxiang renkou daduiliu” (“The second baby boom and the great urban and rural population exchange”), in Dexin, Zhao (ed.), Zhonghua renmin gongheguo jingji dashiji (Major Economic Events of the People's Republic of China) (Henan, China: Renmin chubanshe, 1989), pp. 272–74.Google Scholar

44. See State Council, “A circular on the issue of peasants migrating to market towns,” and State Commission for Restructuring the Economic System (SCRES), “Guanyu yinfa ‘chengshi jingji tizhi gaige shidian gongzuo zuotanhui jiyao’ de tongzhi, 1984” (“A circular on ‘symposium of the experiments of economic system reform in urban areas”), in Wang Jiye and Zhu Yuanzhen, Handbook of Economic System Reform.

45. The recently available data from the 1990 census suggest a 5.1% under-reporting rate (CSSB, Chinese Statistical Yearbook, 1992, pp. 80 and 88), which is very close to our assumption of 5% for 1984–90.

46. See Wing, Chan Kam, “Rural-urban migration in China,” Urban Geography, Vol. 9 (1988), pp. 53–84Google Scholar; Sit, V. F. S., “Introduction: urbanisation and city development in the People's Republic of China,” in sit, (ed.), Chinese Cities: The Growth of the Metropolis Since 1949 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 1–66Google Scholar; Kirkby, R. J., Urbanisation in China: Town and Country in a Developing Economy 1949–2000 A.D. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Jinsheng, Wei, “Wushi niandai yilai woguo renkou chenshihua de yiban qushi” (“The general trends of China's urbanisation since the 1950s”), Renkou yu jingji, No. 6 (1985), pp. 28–35.Google Scholar

47. The extrapolation and interpolation are based on regression. The details of the regression results and the reconstructed Chinese vital statistics of 1949–90 are available on request.

48. Chan Kam Wing, “Rural-urban migration in China,” pp. 57–59.

49. Yet it cannot be ignored that, in the Chinese case, it is more likely that rural people moved to smaller urban areas because of more restrictions on migration to larger urban areas. Since migration is age-selective, this will affect the vital rates in smaller urban areas. Surely, compared with the vital rates of cities, towns are more likely to be affected by young migrants from villages. However, compared with the vital rates of larger cities, smaller cities are also more affected by rural young migrants. Therefore, a division between “town” and “city” in vital rates, as Chan did, still cannot solve the problem. It is also unreliable to estimate town vital rates based on limited data.

50. See United Nations, Methods of Measuring Internal Migration (New York: United Nations, 1970).Google Scholar However, the “migration” here includes not only people who have actually moved from rural to urban areas, but people who have been encompassed by enlarged urban boundaries.

51. Preston, Samuel H., “Urban growth in developing countries: a demographic reappraisal,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1979), p. 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52. Williamson, “Migration and urbanisation,” pp. 428–29.

53. See, for example, Adelman, I. and Morris, C. T., “Patterns of economic growth, 1850–1914, or Chenery-Syrquin in perspective,” in Syrquin, M., Taylor, L. and Westphal, L. E. (eds.), Economic Structure and Performance: Essays in honour ofHollis B. Chenery (New York: Academic Press, 1984), pp. 52–55.Google Scholar

54. Choosing 1963 as the end of this period is to skip over the sharp fluctuations during the Great Leap Forward (1958–59) and aftermath (1960–62).

55. Both GDP and employment figures are newly estimated by this author. See Wu, Harry X., “The ‘real’ Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) for the pre-reform period 1952–1977,” Review of Income and Wealth, Series 39, No. 1 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “The industrialisation of China's rural labour force since the economic reform,” Chinese Economic Research Unit Working Paper, The University of Adelaide, No. 92/6 (1992).

56. See Williamson, “Migration and urbanisation,” Tables 4 and 5.

57. See Preston, “Urban growth in developing countries,” p. 198.

58. Kelley, A. C. and Williamson, J. G., “Population growth, industrial revolutions, and the urban transition,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1984), p. 430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. See for example, Anderson, Kym, “Urban household subsidies and rural outmigration: the case of China,” Chinese Economy Research Unit Working Paper, The University of Adelaide, No. 90/3(1990).Google Scholar

60. The “big-collective” enterprises are owned by collective in name only. In China, they are also called “quasi-state” -owned enterprises since, in many aspects, they are similar to I state-owned ones.

61. In 1978, 27% of urban new workers were from rural areas. In 1985–91, this stayed at a level of about 20% per annum. Assuming conservatively that half of urban “collective-owned” enterprises were “big-collectives,” the new workers hired by state-owned and “big-collective” enterprises accounted for about 86% in 1978 and 73% in 1991 of total urban recruitment (CSSB, Chinese Statistical Yearbook, 1992, p. 118).

62. Zhang Jianhong and Wu Yelun, “The ‘inbreeding’ problem in labour employment must be solved.”

63. It should be noted that after this article was completed, the results from China's 1990 census became available. Since the urban criteria used in this census were changed again, CSSB had to readjust its previously published data to avoid an enormous break in the continuity of its urban series. This has to a large extent corrected the exaggeration of urban population data during 1984–89 in particular (e.g., the urbanization level at the end of 1990 was 26.4% rather than 54% based on the previous criterion). Nevertheless, this only affirms the doubt about the quality of previously published urban population data. The CSSB's new urban series does not build on a reasonable and consistent basis, and further confuses researchers.

64. See, for example, Goldstein, “Urbanisation in China,” pp. 12–13.

65. See Reeitsu, Kojima, Urbanisation and Urban Problems in China (Tokyo: Institute of Development Economics, 1987), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar