[Image courtesy of www.boston.com]
China's first census since 2000 is now underway and will last until 10 November.
An army of 6 million volunteers will crisscross the country seeking to count the world's most populous country at an alleged cost of US$100 million.
The phenomenal growth of the Internet over the past decade will make this latest head counting exercise particularly taxing.
Many of the country's estimated 420 million netizens have already started discussing the census via a bewildering array of micro-blogs, websites, live chatrooms, bulletin boards and Tencent's QQ, the world's largest networking platform.
Not all of the feedback has been positive. Indeed, according to various media reports more than 30% of respondents have had negative views of the 2010 Census.
Many younger generation netizens have raised concerns about the sharing of personal information with the census takers. This in turn has prompted the authorities to water down some of the questioning, particularly regarding the submission of personal residency ID (Hukou) data.
The census will, however, serve an important purpose, namely confirming whether or not China's total population has been under-reported by a staggering 200 million as was widely believed in 2000.
The census's statistical information and data will also help China's policy makers and city planners tackle the huge challenge of designing the Chinese Megacities of the future.
These are expected to accommodate more than 250 million inhabitants by 2030.
Whether conducting a national census or designing megacities of the future China continues to face a unique set of challenges that few if any other countries have experienced.
For more on China's Census please download the following report.
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