Data from China Social Organisation Network shows that until the 20th of January, 2021, there were more than 900,000 registered social organisations in China. Among these organisations, 2,292 of them were registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
There are five noticeable trends that can be summarised as follows:
- The number of registered social organisations has continued to grow since 2012
According to China Social Organisation Network, in 2012 there were 320,000 social organisations in China. The number rose to 390,000 in 2013, and has since continued to grow. In 2020, the total number of registered social organisations in China surpassed 890,000.
By 1pm on the 20th of January, 2021, 900,914 social organisations in China had registered in accordance with the law. It is estimated that by 2022, there will be more than 1 million social organisations existing in the country.
- The number of newly registered social organisations dropped to the lowest point in February 2020 and reached the highest point in July 2020.
Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of social organisations registrations dropped significantly compared with the annual increase of 70,000 – 80,000 in previous years. There were slightly more than 50,000 newly registered social oragnisations in 2020. As can be observed from the chart above, in January, 4,618 social organisations were registered, but the number fell down to only 707 in February. Afterwards, a gradual growth can be observed from March to July, reaching its peak in July with 6,631 organisations registered. Since then, no more than 6,000 social organisations were registered despite 3,771 social organisations being successfully registered in the month of October alone.
- 240,000 organisations have more than 10 years of history, and nearly 300,000 organisations have operated for five to ten years.
Among the 900,000 social organisations, more than 240,000 have operated for more than ten years; 295,139 organisations have operated between five to ten years. Among organisations that existed for less than five years (including five years), 155,881 have operated between three to five years; 152,661 have operated between one to three years; and 50,774 have operated for less than one year.
- Three provinces with the highest numbers of registered social organisations are Jiangsu Province, Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province; so far, there is no province has the number of social organisations exceeded 100,000.
Data shows uneven geographical development in China. Up until now, there are 12 provinces – Jiangsu Province, Guangdong Province, Zhejiang Province, Shandong Province, Sichuan Province, Henan Province, Hunan Province, Hebei Province, Anhui Province, Fujian Province, Guangxi Province and Hubei Province – with more than 30,000 social organisations.
Jiangsu Province ranks first among all the 12 provinces, with a total of more than 98,000 social organisations and the potential to exceed 100,000 in the near future. Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province both take the second place with more than 70,000 social organisations in each region. Shandong Province followed Guangdong and Zhejiang, having more than 60,000 social organisations. The remaining five provinces all have social organisations with numbers below 50,000.
In the four central-administered municipalities, Chongqing has the largest number of social organisation registrations (18,000), followed by Shanghai (17,000), Beijing (14,000) and Tianjin (6,500).
- In 2020, the newly registered social organisations mainly came from Hebei Province, Shandong Province, Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, and Guangdong Province.
Different from the ranking of the total number of social organisations in provinces of China, Hebei Province has the most newly registered organisations in 2020, with a total number of 5,716. Shandong Province has the second largest number of newly registered organisations (5,235), followed by Jiangsu Province (4,272), Zhejiang Province (4,024), Guangdong Province (3,934) and Henan Province (3,049). Provinces including Fujian, Anhui, Guangxi, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Hunan and Liaoning all have more than 2,000 newly registered social organisations in each region.
