China delimits Lhasa’s urban population to 500K by 2020

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View of Lhasa from Jokhang Temple.
View of Lhasa from Jokhang Temple.

(TibetanReview.net, Aug13, 2017) – The population of permanent residents in the urban area of Tibet’s capital Lhasa should be limited within 500,000 by 2020, according to a 2009-2020 overall urban plan for Lhasa approved by the State Council, China’s cabinet. It was released by the State Council on its website on Aug 8, reported the official globaltimes.cn.

The plan was also reported to restrict the urban area of the city to 78 square kilometres. The plan is said to forbid the development of new areas and districts outside the regulated land plan. The plan is reported to have allocated an area of 4,326 square kilometres for unified rural and urban development.

“Lhasa’s urban population growth should be in line with its economic development. The plan will allow more local residents to fully enjoy the city’s basic public services and social welfare,” Ma Li, counselor of the State Council and former director of the China Population and Development Research Centre, was quoted as saying, adding the plan will also help promote social stability.

In this connection, the report noted that the plan did not make any mention of the proportion of the Han ethnic group and Tibetan ethnic group in the city’s urban population mix.

The report cited statistics released on the Chinese statistical information website tjcn.org as showing that in 2015 Lhasa had a registered population of 530,300.

The plan is said to call for expanding public facilities to cover the neighbouring villages, developing counties and key villages with potential, and optimizing the overall layout of villages and towns.

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