China's population had increased to 1.37 billion, including 1.3397 billion on the mainland, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

The population figure for the mainland was 73.9 million more than that of 2000, when China conducted its fifth national census, according to data from the sixth census released by the NBS.

The data shows an annual average population growth of 0.57 percent over the past decade (2000-2010) on the Chinese mainland, compared with the growth rate of 1.07 percent from 1990 to 2000, indicating population growth is slowing, said Ma Jiantang, director of the NBS.

Of the total population on the mainland, men accounted for 51.27 percent, while women made up 48.73 percent.

China's mainland population living in urban areas totaled 665.57 million, representing 49.68 percent of the total, up by 13.46 percentage points on the 2000 figure, while the population classified as rural population stood at 674.15 million, said the bureau.

The falling birth rate and increasing migrating population led to a declining number of 3.1 persons for each core household on average on the mainland, compared with 3.44 persons in 2000, according to the census data.

Meanwhile, the proportion of Han Chinese residing on the mainland had dropped to 91.51 percent, or 0.08 percentage points lower than that in 2000 when China conducted its previous national census.

The census data showed the growth-rate of aging population on China's mainland had increased with people aged 60 or above accounting for 13.26 percent, while juniors aged below 14 made up 16.6 of the mainland's total population.

The census data also showed that the illiteracy ratio on the mainland declined to 4.08 percent in 2010 from 6.72 percent in 2000.

To break down the census data by regions, Guangdong, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces were the top five largest populated regions on China's mainland.

As the world's most populous country, China launched its month-long sixth national population census on its mainland from Nov. 1 last year, mobilizing more than six million census takers to go door to door and visit over 400 million households across the country.

Statistics on population in China's Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan were provided by authorities in these regions.

(China.org.cn April 28, 2011)