Population by District (Census)

Source

Census and Statistics Department (CSD / censtatd)

Department URL: https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/en/
Table: Population by District Council Constituency Area (DCCA)
Download: https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/en/web_table.html?id=1A

Format

XLSX Annual (Census years: 2006, 2011, 2016, 2021). By-census mid-term updates.

7.47M

HK Population (2021)

452

DCCA Zones

Districts

Annual

Update

Schema / Fields

Field	Type	Example	Description
`DCCA_CODE`	string	`C18A01`	District Council Constituency Area code
`DCCA_NAME_EN`	string	`Sheung Wan`	English name of the DCCA
`DCCA_NAME_ZH`	string	`上環`	Chinese name
`DISTRICT`	string	`Central & Western`	Parent district
`POPULATION`	integer	`28430`	Usual resident population
`LAND_AREA_HA`	float	`42.3`	Land area in hectares
`DENSITY`	integer	`672`	Persons per hectare
`CENSUS_YEAR`	integer	`2021`	Census reference year

Fields verified via censtatd Table 1A documentation.

Example API Call

# Download censtatd table (XLSX)
curl -L -o population_dcca.xlsx \
  "https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/en/EIndexbySubject.html?pcode=B1120068&scode=S00"

# CKAN search alternative
curl "https://data.gov.hk/en-data/api/3/action/package_search?q=population+district+council+constituency"

Example Response

DCCA_CODE | DCCA_NAME_EN      | DISTRICT          | POPULATION | DENSITY
C18A01    | Sheung Wan        | Central & Western | 28,430     | 672/ha
C18A02    | Sai Ying Pun      | Central & Western | 31,210     | 584/ha
C18A03    | Mid-Levels West   | Central & Western | 19,870     | 341/ha
C18B01    | Central           | Central & Western | 12,340     | 891/ha

Used By

Model	How
Gravity Model	O_i origin mass — population × income × dining frequency per zone
Huff Model	Customer flow numerator: P(i→j) × Population(i) = expected customers from zone i
Regression Model	Market size variable X₃ (population within catchment)
Microsimulation	Seeds the synthetic population by zone

Notes / Gotchas

DCCA boundaries change every 4 years with District Council elections — check boundary vintage matches your data year
“Usual resident” population excludes visitors and transient workers (significant in tourist areas)
For Sheung Wan / Central: add daytime worker population separately (not in residential census)
Combine with household income (demo-household-income) to compute effective purchasing power per zone
For location-level analysis, prefer STPU Census Zones (211 zones vs 18 districts) — this is what the API actually uses for radius-based population aggregation