The population in Shenzhen in 2020 stood at 17.56 million, ranking second by 1.12 million less than the population of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, data from the seventh national census in Guangdong Province that released by the Guangdong Provincial Statistics Bureau showed Saturday.

Guangdong was the most populous province in the country with a population of approximately 126 million in 2020. The latest figure increased 21.7 million, or 20.81 percent, compared with the 104.3 million recorded in the previous census conducted a decade ago.

Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan are three cities in Guangdong whose population is more than 10 million. Foshan ranks No. 4 with a population of 9.5 million.

Compared with the data in the sixth national census, the population in Shenzhen has increased by 7.14 million, accounting for about one third of the increase of the population in Guangdong during the 10 years.

The population in Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Huizhou and Zhongshan increased by 5.98 million, 2.3 million, 2.25 million, 1.45 million and 1.3 million, respectively.

Shenzhen is still a young city because the population of senior citizens above 60 years old took up only 5.36 percent of the city’s total, 6.99 percentage points lower than the average of Guangdong Province and 13.34 percentage points lower than the national average. Dongguan is close to Shenzhen in terms of the population of senior citizens, with them only taking up 5.47 percent of the total.

The ratio between male and female was 130 to 100, meaning Shenzhen has the highest disparity in Guangdong Province, while the lowest recorded was in Meizhou, whose gender ratio was 101 to 100, around 12 percentage points lower than the provincial average.

In regards to education, Shenzhen took first place with 28,849 people out of every 100,000 having a college and above-level education. Guangzhou and Zhuhai took second and third places, with 27,277 and 25,752, respectively, for every 100,000.

Of the 21 prefecture-level cities and above, six cities were populated with 5 to 10 million, and five cities had population of 3-5 million.

The population in the Pearl River Delta area was 78 million, taking up 61.9 percent of the total in Guangdong, up by 8.04 percentages over the number in 2010. In contrast, the population in the east wing of Guangdong coastal economic belt was 16.32 million, taking up 12.95 percent, and number has decreased by 2.16 percentage points over the last 10 years.

The population in northern Guangdong, the ecological development area, also dropped by 2.78 percentage points when compared with the numbers in 2010.