China: floorspace per household, 2020

Floorspace per household is total floorspace divided by the number of family households, both taken from table 9-2 of the China Population Census Yearbook 2020. Rooms per household is computed the same way. The census table gives totals, not averages, so birthrate.io does this one division and nothing more.

Gross, not usable, area. Chinese housing floorspace (建筑面积, "construction area") includes the walls and an apportioned share of common areas such as stairwells, lift lobbies and corridors in apartment buildings. Usable floor area (使用面积) is smaller, especially in high-rise flats, so do not compare these figures directly with European "useful floor area" statistics.

The figures come from the census long form, a 10% sample of households, and cover family households living in housing units. Collective households such as dormitories are excluded. Rural homes, often self-built and multi-storey, are much larger on average than urban flats. That is why mostly rural provinces such as Jiangxi and Tibet are at the top and Shanghai and Beijing at the bottom.

Data: National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Population Census Yearbook 2020, table 9-2 (long-form sample) (table file). Boundaries: birthrate.io China province layer. Retrieved 2026-10-27.