Most of the research on the spatial pattern of urban population in China focused on the time scale before 2010, while China’s population migration and mobility showed new trends and characteristics after 2010. Using the fifth census data, the sixth census data and the latest seventh census data, this paper systematically analyzes the new evolution characteristics, and urban expansion shrinkage law of China’ s urban population spatial pattern. The research finds that: The total urban population is spatially characterized by “agglomeration to the southeast coastal and central provincial capital cities”. The urban population concentration center is biased toward the southeast, but it shows an evolutionary trend from Southeast to Southwest; The spatial pattern of expanding cities evolved from the four major urban agglomerations in the east to the multi-point resonance of regional central cities, and the spatial pattern of contracting cities evolved from scattered distribution in the central and western regions to continuous distribution in the northwest and northeast regions; The agglomeration pattern of urban population shows that the expansion cities in Southeast China show high-high agglomeration, and the shrinking cities in the northeast show low-low agglomeration. Based on this, the policy implications are proposed as follows: In view of the differences in the size and distribution of urban population, it is necessary to focus on policy preference and support for shrinking cities, and implement classified policies according to the characteristics of urban population distribution and the trend of contraction and expansion.
