Population in Beijing's central areas drops in 2016

BEIJING - The number of permanent residents in Beijing's six main urban districts dropped by about 353,000 last year, according to the municipal bureau of statistics on Thursday.

The reduction is more than the entire population of Iceland.

Beijing plans to cap its population at 23 million by 2020, reducing the population in six core districts by 15 percent from the 2014 level.

The bureau of statistics found residents' image of the city had improved.

A survey showed that 72.3 percent of those polled had confidence in Beijing's becoming a high-class livable city, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous year, and 63.3 percent found the city more livable than last year.