Statistics says China is now officially an urban society. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's urban population has surpassed that of rural areas for the first time in the history.

The number of urban dwellers increased by 21 million to hit 690 million as of the end of 2011, accounting for over 51 per cent of the country's total population. Rural population fell by 14 million to 656 million.

According to the statistics bureau, the nation's total population increased by over 6 million over the past year to 1.34 billion. The size of the working population, or people between the ages of 15 and 64, has dropped for the first time since 2002 to about 1 billion, or 74.4 percent of the nation's total population.