Alternative Data Sources

Central_Statistics_Organization

In previous versions of the China subregional model a population series that ran from 1960 through 2013 was used. The previous data dictionary entry for this series said that the population series was sourced from the Central Statistics Organization and that there was data for 1999 and 2003, which was clearly incorrect. The  source has not been found and some of the data was questionable. The prominent red flag was the appearance of what may have been sorting errors, where data for some provinces appeared to be switched over several years, and some unexpected observations for Chongqing. There is a single data point in 1982 that is as high as the population throughout the 2000s. Moreover, the next observation is the mid 1990s is about a tenth of the 1982 value. After 1998 Chongqing's population rapidly increases ten-fold to around 30 million. All of this made this unknown population source unusable.

China_Data_Center

The China Data Center database from the University of Michigan published population data from 1949 through 2003. This data was considered as a potential source to blend with the current population data from the China Statistical Yearbooks to provide a longer historical time series. However, the two series could not be blended because the data from 1995 through 2003, where the two series had overlap, did not match.