Population Distribution in China

Each dot represents 5,000 persons. The dark area in the lower middle is Sichuan (Chengdu and Chongqing). Sichuan At that time was the most populous Province in China. Since then Chongqing became a Municipality and split off from Sichuan.

Population is most sparse in the mountainous, desert, and grassland regions of the northwest and southwest. In Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, portions are completely uninhabited, and only a few sections have populations denser than ten people per km2. The Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet autonomous regions and Qinghai and Gansu provinces comprise 55% of the country's land area but in 1985 contained only 5.7% of its population.