(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-04 14:03

BEIJING - The total population of Beijing has exceeded 17.4 million, according to a municipal population official.

Speaking at a population forum hosted by Fengtai District on Monday, Zhang Yunli, deputy chief of the Beijing municipal commission of population and family planning, said there were 12.03 million permanent, registered residents and 5.4 million transients in the capital.

Of the total permanent population, 91,000 were born in the first 10 months of this year, with 40,475 migrant babies born during the same period, said Zhang.

The gender ratio for permanent residents (female vs. male births) is  100:108, the highest level that can be considered a natural distribution of births, while the ratio for transients is 100:120, which is highly skewed towards males.

According to Zhang, inner-city areas are the most densely populated, with the number of residents being 60 times as many as outlying suburbs.

The official predicted that Beijing's population would continue to surge in the next five to 10 years, for several reasons. A prominent factor was that those born in the 1980s have reached their prime child-bearing years.