The resident population of Hunan province reached 68.98 million at the end of 2018 – an increase of 0.56 percent over 2017 – according to statistics from the provincial statistical bureau.

Hunan has 38.65 million urban and 30.34 million rural residents – meaning 56.02 percent of its population lives in urban areas. This is an increase of 1.4 percentage points over 2017.

As Hunan's capital, Changsha became the province's first city with more than eight million regular residents. Meanwhile, its rate of urbanization ranked first in the province at 79.12 percent, with 6.45 million urban and 1.7 million rural residents. In addition to Changsha, seven other cities had an urbanization rate over 50 percent.