Urbanization in China has increased rapidly as a result of the Reform and Opening up Policy of the late 1970s. By the end of 2011, the country had a total urban population of close to 700 million. This means over 50 percent of China's total population are now living in cities. CCTV reporter Guan Yang takes a closer look at the urban migration situation in China and filed this report. An early morning on the outskirts of Beijing, ten years ago, you wouldn't have seen so many people and so much traffic. Just like many newly developed urban towns, they all seem to be built over night. Wang Longqiang, Resident of Changping District, said, "When we first came here a couple of years ago, there was nothing much here really. It's changed a lot." As traditional farming is replaced with modern machinery, mechanization in the agricultural sector has pushed rural laborers into the country's economic powerhouse, industrial production. And studies on modern civilization tell us that when the urban population reaches a certain point, towns become metropolises. In a country like China, the demographic trends have their own particular characteristics. Prof Zheng Zhenzhen, Inst. of Population and Labor Economics, CASS, said, "Unlike the urbanization process experienced by the world's currently developed countries, people from rural areas in China don't seem to settle in cities. Most are here to earn a better living and save the money, then return to where they're from." Just like the country's new bullet trains, urbanization in China is taking place at an unprecedented speed. Prof Feng Changchun, Urban and Environ. Sciences, Peking Uni., said, "What took western countries like the UK to complete their urbanization processes, China has managed to do it in just 20 years. And apart from this unprecedented time scale, the country has the most newly developed cities."

• published: 11 Oct 2012
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