Land use in China
China has four times the population of the U.S., within roughly the same area. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, 20% of the world’s population lives in China. While the rate of population growth has been declining for decades, the total number of inhabitants has been growing and is expected to do so through 2030. China’s urban population is growing rapidly; between 1950 and 2009, the percentage of the population living in urban areas quadrupled from 14% to 48%. Meanwhile, the rural population is declining, opening the landscape in areas that are not urbanized. The forests and farming land of eastern China support far more people and major cities than do the grasslands, deserts, and high mountain regions of the west.
Environmental issues in China
China currently has the world's largest population but population growth is very slow in part due to the one-child policy.
The environmental issues are also negatively affecting the people living in China. Because of the emissions created from the factories, the number of people diagnosed with cancer in China has increased. Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer that is plaguing the population. In 2015, there were more than 4.3 million new cancer cases in the country and more than 2.8 million people died from the disease.