Population Growth
In 1949, there were between 300 and 400 Han Chinese residents in Lhasa. In 1950, the town covered fewer than three square kilometres and harboured around 30,000 inhabitants. The Potala Palace and the village of Zhöl below it were considered separate from the city at the time. In 1953, according to the first population census, Lhasa numbered about 30,000 residents, including 4,000 beggars and not counting the 15,000 monks.
By 1992, Lhasa's permanent population was estimated at a little under 140,000 people, including 96,431 Tibetans, 40,387 Han Chinese and 2,998 sundry. Added to that figure are perhaps 60,000 and 80,000 temporary residents, for the most part Tibetan pilgrims and traders. In 2008, Lhasa had 400,000 people, with a majority still being Tibetan.
Read more about this topic: Sinicization Of Tibet
Famous quotes containing the words population and/or growth:
“We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“The windy springs and the blazing summers, one after another, had enriched and mellowed that flat tableland; all the human effort that had gone into it was coming back in long, sweeping lines of fertility. The changes seemed beautiful and harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a great idea. I recognized every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found that I remembered the conformation of the land as one remembers the modelling of human faces.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)