It can be said that the power of China lies in its massive population. This country holds around 1.3 billion people and nearly 20 percent of the world’s people. As such you might expect living there to be a tight squeeze.

However, according to 2010 census figures of the populations of each Chinese Province, Autonomous Region, and Direct Controlled Municipality, the nation with the most people still has quite a bit of space in parts.

First, looking at this map of population densities it would seem that most people are in the highly urbanized eastern part of the country.

Looking at the straight populations though, it’s Guangdong that comes out on top with 104,303,132 people. In the world there are only twelve countries with more than 100 million people, and if Guangdong had seceded from China it would join the club becoming the 12th and knocking the Philippines down to 13th (according to some sources). This would also bring India and China to nearly the same population according to some estimates.

1)    China (minus Guangdong) (1,200,000,000)
2)    India (1,200,000,000)
3)    USA (317,000,000)
4)    Indonesia (237,000,000)
5)    Brazil (192,000,000)
6)    Pakistan (183,000,000)
7)    Nigeria (170,000,000)
8)    Bangladesh (150,000,000)
9)    Russia (143,000,000)
10) Japan (127,000,000)
11) Mexico (118,000,000)
12) Guangdong (104,000,000)
13) Philippines (103,000,000)

*NOTE: These figures are only rough estimates taken from a variety of sources.*

As expected, most of the top 10 regions for population can be found in the eastern part of the China. One exception is Sichuan which came in fourth with 80,418,200 people, but is located in the central part of the country.

Although Guangdong is a relatively large province, it’s still fairly small for its sheer number of people. It’s not quite as cozy as the island of Male, but to put it in perspective, if the entire world population were to move into Russia, it would still be around 25% more spacious than Guangdong is now – a lot colder, but more spacious.

On the other end of the list, we have the Tibet Autonomous Region with a measly 3,002,166 people. The area is around three times that of all Japan and yet has fewer people than the 23 wards of Tokyo (8,967,665). It’s also more sparsely populated than Canada.

So if you’re looking for some real estate in China, don’t worry because there are still acres to be had – just as long as you’re into mountains and deserts. It’s also comforting to know that in the event of a massive climate shift causing uninhabitable temperatures around the equator, we can all move into Russia and get by much like they do in Guangdong now. Thanks statistics!

Source: Nico Nico News (Japanese)

Here are the full rankings for each province, autonomous region, and direct controlled city. Hong Kong and Macau are not included.

1)    Guangdong (104,303,132)
2)    Shandong (95,793,100)
3)    Henan (94,023,567)
4)    Sichuan (80,418,200)
5)    Jiangsu (78,659,903)
6)    Hebei (71,854,202)
7)    Hunan (65,683,722)
8)    Anhui (59,501,000)
9)    Hubei (57,237,740)
10) Zhejiang (54,426,900)
11) Guangxi (46,026,600)
12) Yunnan (45, 966,000)
13) Jiangxi (44,567,475)
14) Liaoning (43,746,323)
15) Heilongjiang (38,312,224)
16) Shaanxi (37,327,378)
17) Shanxi (35,712,111)
18) Guizhou (34,746,468)
19) Fujian (34,714, 835)
20) Chongqing (28,846,200)
21) Inner Mongolia (27,706,321)
22) Jilin (27,462,297)
23) Gansu (25,575,254)
24) Shanghai (23,019,148)
25) Xinjiang (21,813,334)
26) Beijing (19,612,000)
27) Tianjin (12, 938,224)
28) Hainan (8,671,518)
29) Ningxia (6,301,350)
30) Qinghai (5,626,722)
31) Tibet (3,002,166)