China has allegedly surpassed the United States as the world's first country in terms of the number of people accessing the Internet.

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a report on Thursday that 253 million Chinese went online by the end of June, a 56 percent increase over 2007. Of them, 214 million have access to broadband Internet, which amounts to 80 percent of subscribers. There are also 12.2 million domains under the .cn top level domain, surpassing Germany which stands on second place.

Still, the percentage of the population who uses the Internet is 19 percent, well below the United States' 71 percent. The world average is around 21 percent. The Chinese government actively encourages Internet usage, but attempts to block harmful material such as pornography, as well as sites of its opponents. Their clean-up campaign includes banning all messages, whether text, audio or video, sexually suggestive, including ads, as well as sites that promote violence, religious cults or unveil national secrets.

In 2006, there were 137 million Internet users in the country. In 2007, the population grew by 53 percent, and the numbers continue to increase. The number of Chinese accessing the Internet is expected to near 500 million over the next few years, well above the total U.S. population. People younger than 30 accounted for 69 percent of total Internet users.

Back in April, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information revealed China managed to surpass the United States, as its Internet population reached 221 million users at the time.