For the first time, the number of people living in Chinese cities has outnumbered those living in the countryside, as more and more people leave rural areas to seek better economic opportunities.
Urban dwellers now represent 51.27 percent of China's entire population of nearly 1.35 billion -- or 690.8 million people -- the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
China has for centuries been a mainly agrarian nation, but economic reforms undertaken more than three decades ago have triggered breakneck growth and a huge population shift to cities and coastal areas.
The NBS said 21 million people moved to cities in 2011 -- almost as much as the entire population of Sri Lanka -- while the number of rural dwellers dropped accordingly.
This includes a huge number of migrant workers -- rural residents seeking work in towns and cities -- who have helped fuel growth in the world's second largest economy.
A national census published in April last year showed China counted more than 221 million migrants.
A government report released in October further predicted that more than 100 million Chinese farmers would move to cities by 2020, posing huge challenges for urban planners and already stretched social welfare systems.
