It should be noted that the inflow population from outside the province attracted by the city is also related to the city’s administrative level and statistical caliber to a certain extent. For example, among the municipalities directly under the China’s Central Government, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin are urban economies. And all the counties under their jurisdiction have been changed to districts, so the floating population of these three cities is the population outside the province. While the floating population of the provincial cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan not only come from outside the province, but also from within the province, especially from the east, west and north of Guangdong. Therefore, if the total floating population and net inflow population are counted, Shenzhen exceeds Shanghai and Beijing.
According to the statistics of the CBN reporter, by 2020, Shenzhen’s net inflow population has reached 11.79 million, ranking first. In addition, the proportion of “indigenous people” in Shenzhen is very low, and many people with household registration have only settled down in the past two decades.
From the perspective of the distribution of urban agglomerations, there are 4 cities in the Pearl River Delta that rank in the top 10 in terms of inflows from outside the province. And among them, 3 cities rank in the top 5, namely Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou, and Foshan ranks 10th. From the perspective of the proportion of inflows from outside the province to the total permanent population, Dongguan ranks first among all cities with 59.2%, which is equivalent to 3 out of every 5 people in Dongguan coming from outside the province.