China's population reaches 1.37 billion.

The population of mainland China stood at 1.37 billion at the end of 2014, an increase of around 7.1 million from the previous year.

The country continues to deal with a gender imbalance, with about 700 million men to 667 million women, according to data released yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics, while the gender ratio stood at 115.88 newborn boys for every 100 newborn girls.

Meanwhile, nearly one million couples applied to give birth to a second child since China relaxed its one-child policy over a year ago. The number of applications falls short of the National Health and Family Planning Commission's estimates of less than two million annually.