Always growing? Mapping population change in urban China for 2010-2020

Abstract

The geographic assessment of population changes provides fundamental insights into understanding urban development and addressing future urbanization challenges. In this graphic, we produced a Dorling cartogram to geo-visualize population changes at the city level across China between 2010 and 2020. The cartogram illustrates how internal migration fuels China’s growing population concentration and regional disparity, leading to significant population loss in lower administrative-level cities and escalating intercity imbalances across the country.