Macau had a population of around 650,000 last year, a 17.8 percent increase over five years, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) has announced.
The findings of the 2016 Population By-census – conducted in August last year – were released on Friday.
Macau had a population of 650,834 in August last year, a 17.8 percent increase from the 552,503 in the 2011 Population Census, attributable to a surge in non-resident workers and a rebound in the birth rate, the bureau said.
The average annual growth rate of the population between 2011 and 2016 reached 3.3 percent, the highest in the past 20 years, the bureau added.
The number of local residents – excluding non-resident workers and non-local students living in the city – stood at 537,018 last year, up by 10.7 percent compared with 2011, according to the results.
The bureau said that Macau’s population continued to age, adding that the number of people aged at least 65 increased substantially by 48.6 percent – in the five-years – to 59,383 last year, accounting for 9.1 percent of the total population, up by 1.9 percentage points.
The bureau also said the female population outnumbered the male population. The number of females and males totalled 336,816 and 314,018 respectively, accounting for 51.8 percent and 48.2 percent of the total population, the bureau said. The gender ratio was 93.2 – corresponding to 93.2 males per 100 females.
The surfeit of females was even more apparent among local residents – the gender ratio dropped from 92.7 in 2011 to 90.2 last year, the bureau said.
The city’s population density has continued to rise in the past five years. The results show that Macau’s population density stood at 21,340 people per square kilometre, up by 15.5 percent from 18,478 in 2011.
The bureau also said that those who completed tertiary education accounted for 23.1 percent of the population aged three and above last year, up by 6.4 percentage points compared to five years ago.
