Hebei province will start its sixth population census on Nov, 1, officials at a provincial meeting said.

The provincial census, a part of the national census, will be carried out in three stages and be completed by 2012.

For the first time, foreigners and people from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan will be included, but temporary foreign residents will be excluded.

Census workers will collect information on people’s name, gender, age, nationality, level of education, profession, population migration, marriage, and other categories.

Compared with previous surveys, items on the questionnaires of the coming census will be expanded. They will also collect data on housing and social security for the first time.

Hebei vice governor Fu Zhifang, who is in charge of the province’s census, asked all relevant departments to ensure the accuracy of the collected data and warned any unit or person not to provide false or concealed data or refuse to provide data.

According to Fu, the census is expected to show the province’s demographic structure and distribution and changes of population size and migration over the past 10 years.

Hebei has 67.44 million people, according to the fifth census carried out in 2000.

By Guo Changdong