A census taker checks information collected in a trial run of the sixth national census, at a household in the city of Zaozhuang, east China's Shandong Province, on October 30, 2010.
China launches its sixth national census starting Monday, 10 years after the previous one, Xinhua reported. From Nov. 1 to Nov. 10, more than 6 million census takers will go door to door and visit over 400 million households across the country and record family information to finish the first stage of the census. In order to have more accurate figures, from Nov. 11 to Nov. 30, another round of census-taking will be launched, though on a smaller scale of 1/10,000 of the population. Statistics will be calculated in December, with the key data scheduled to be released by the end of April 2011.
The census, for the first time, will cover foreign residents living in China. The census started on Oct. 25 in Guangzhou – ahead of the nationwide effort because of the 16th Asian Games.