With 1.3billion people, many of the cities are overrun during busy periods, with images revealing the true extent of the growing population, including gridlocked roads packed with static cars queued for miles on end.

The images - taken over the last 16 years - also show a beach with people packed so closely that not a grain of sand is visible as far as they eye can see as citizens dash to the water with rubber rings around them.

Thousands of children, who sit the same exams all over the country at the same time, are seen densely packed together on uniform desks in a vast hall.

This is despite the one-child policy China adopted in the 1970s that it claims has prevented 400million births, but demographers have called the claim into question.

Other images show how homes are tightly packed into what look like small uniform cells in sprawling tower blocks, essential to house the vast population.

(www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3795187/Astonishing-photos-reveal-China-s-densely-populated-cities.html#ixzz4KgK0c9SR)