CHINA:A massive influx of migrant workers to build Olympic sites and a year of the pig-driven baby boom has seen Beijing's population swell to 17 million, just one million short of the 18 million upper limit set for expansion by 2020.
Of the 17 million residents, 12.04 million have the household registration certificates known as hukou, while there is a floating population of 5.1 million, the ministry of public security told a meeting on how to deal with the growing number of migrant workers.
The news comes just one year after the Beijing city authorities announced it would limit its population to 18 million by 2020.
A major factor in the population explosion has been migrant workers from the countryside who come to the capital to build the Olympic sites and also to work in the restaurants and take up industrial jobs related to the city's recent transformation. There are about 200 million migrants working in cities across China.
Another two million people are expected to move to the city for the games in 2008.
Another factor has been a baby boom related to the year of the pig, especially a golden pig as in this very auspicious year.
"Given this year's baby boom, triggered by the superstitious belief that babies born in the Chinese year of the pig are lucky, analysts say there is little hope for an immediate slowdown in Beijing's population growth, even with the post-Beijing Olympics lull and soaring housing prices," the Xinhua news agency reported.
Overpopulation is putting Beijing's natural resources under pressure - the city is very dry and has already been forced to bring in much of its water from neighbouring counties. Experts warn that 17 million people is three million citizens more than the city's resources can sustain.
China is home to 20 per cent of the world's people. Shanghai is the biggest city in China, with more than 20 million people once migrant workers are counted.