China to undertake accurate population count for 2011 Census

BEIJING - Chinese census officials fanned out across the country on Monday to try to get an accurate count of the population over a ten-day period.

The sixth census will use about 6.5 million census takers, each dressed in a uniform and bearing a certificate, asking everyone living and working on the mainland to information about their personal lives. Over 400 million households are to be visited for this exercise, the China Daily reports.

Anyone born before Monday gets included, and anyone born after Monday gets left out until the next one, in 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

About 90 percent of the people will be asked to fill in an 18-item form, covering their name, sex, ethnic group, household registration, and education; the other 10 percent, chosen randomly, will be asked to fill in a longer 45-question form.

Foreigners have it easier: they only have eight questions to answer.

One in 10,000 households will be visited again from November 11 to 30, with the NBS sorting and filing the data through December.

In April 2011, the main census data will be made public.

Around 700 million Yuan (103 million dollars) of central government funds will be spent on the census, according to official figures. (ANI)