Against the background of China’s relaxation of family planning standards, this thesis analyzed the demographic trends in ethnic minority areas and their impacts on regional development under China’s adjustment of its population strategy. By setting up different fertility scenarios, the population forecasting software (PADIS-INT) was applied to forecast the population scale and structure of the Hotan region. This thesis analyzed the impacts of population growth on regional sustainable development from the perspectives of employment, economic development, and resource carrying capacity to provide references for the formulation and implementation of population and economic development policies in minority areas, to alleviate the contradiction between the human and environment. The results showed that the Hotan region would maintain a relatively fast population growth rate for a long period; by 2050, its population would skew younger when compared to China’s general statistics. However, due to the lagging economic development and the constraints to resources and the environment, unemployment would become the most severe problem hampering regional development. While developing its local economy, the Hotan region needs to better promote the interregional migration of the labor force.
Population Strategy and Economic Development in Shantou
