Facts.
Beijing, one of China's most densely populated cities and the and governmental center of the nation, draws people from all over China, as well as the world. A whopping one-third of the city's population came from elsewhere to make it big in the Chinese capital.
According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning, the population of Beijing Municipality reached 17.4 million in 2007 and is therefore the 4th most densely populated administrative division in China. Of this number, a little more than 12 million have hukou (official residence status), while the remaining 5.4 million inhabitants belong to the floating population, holding temporary residence permits. In addition, there is a large number of unregistered migrant workers, many of whom come from rural areas elsewhere in China (such as the provinces Sichuan and Anhui), who are not accounted for in the population count.
Beijing city proper and its inner suburbs (Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen, Xuanwu, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai and Shijingshan districts) have a population of about 8.5 million. Despite China's one-child policy, there is a clear upward trend in population growth, partially due to the fact that current regulations allow parents who both come from families with only one child to have two children. Between January and October 2007 over 130,000 births were recorded in Beijing. One can only wonder how many more might have been unofficial, considering that a significant percentage of Beijing's migrant population is not taken into account in the statistics.