THE number of permanent residents in Shenzhen increased by 412,200 last year, bringing the city’s total population to 13.43 million, according to a recently released report on population development in Guangdong Province in 2019 by the provincial statistics bureau.

Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, reported the second-largest growth in its permanent population last year, up 401,500 people.

The population growth of Guangzhou and Shenzhen contributed 46 percentage points to the total growth of Guangdong’s population, Shenzhen Economic Daily said Thursday.

The Daily, citing the provincial statistics bureau, said the number of permanent residents in Guangdong Province increased by 1.75 million people, up 1.54 percent from the previous year. With most of the growth reported in the Pearl River Delta cities, Guangdong remained the most populous province in the country with 115.21 million people by the end of 2019, accounting for 8.23 percent of the national total, up 0.1 percent from 2018.  (Claudia Wei)