Provincial and gridded population projection for China under shared socioeconomic pathways from 2010 to 2100

Abstract In response to a growing demand for subnational and spatially explicit data on China’s future population, this study estimates China’s provincial population from 2010 to 2100 by age (0–100+), sex (male and female) and educational levels (illiterate, primary school, junior-high school, senior-high school, college, bachelor’s, and master’s and above) under different shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). The provincial projection takes into account fertility promoting policies and population ceiling restrictions of megacities that have been implemented in China in recent years to reduce systematic biases in current studies. The predicted provincial population is allocated to spatially explicit population grids for each year at 30 arc-seconds resolution based on representative concentration pathway (RCP) urban grids and historical population grids. The provincial projection data were validated using population data in 2017 from China’s Provincial Statistical Yearbook, and the accuracy of the population grids in 2015 was evaluated. These data have numerous potential uses and can serve as inputs in climate policy research with requirements for precise administrative or spatial population data in China.