Fact box: What is the national census?

What about the later censuses?

The second national census came 11 years later, in the wake of the economic upheavals of the Great Leap Forward social restructuring campaign, and the third in 1982, after China concluded the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and embraced market-oriented reforms.

Since the fourth in 1990, the survey is usually conducted every 10 years.

In 2010, the State Council, China's cabinet, rolled out a set of rules requiring the census be conducted once every 10 years, in years ending with the digit "0".