BEIJING -- The number of the Communist Party of China (CPC) members surpassed 96.71 million at the end of 2021, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee announced on Wednesday.

The membership was 3.7 percent up from the 2020 figure, and 15.9 percent more than the figure when the 18th CPC National Congress was held in late 2012, the department said in a report ahead of the 101st founding anniversary of the CPC on July 1.

More than 4.38 million people joined the CPC last year when the Party marked its centenary, figures from the report showed.

The CPC had nearly 4.94 million primary-level Party organizations as of the end of 2021, an increase of 117,000 from the previous year.

"The CPC has been making constant efforts to attract new members and become a vanguard to ensure the Party maintains its strong vitality and combat capacity," the report read.

The composition of Party membership has continuously improved with better levels of education and steady growth in the proportion of female members and those from ethnic minority groups, according to the report.

About 51.46 million Party members, or 53.2 percent of the overall membership, hold junior college degrees or above, 1.3 percentage points higher than that at the end of 2020.

As of the end of 2021, the CPC had 28.43 million female members, accounting for 29.4 percent of the total membership, up 1 percentage point from a year earlier. The proportion of members from ethnic minority groups grew by 0.1 percentage points to 7.5 percent.

Workers and peasants continue to make up the majority of the CPC members, accounting for 33.6 percent of the total membership, data from the report showed.

The leading force of Party organizations at village and community levels has also been improved, featuring a rising proportion of Party secretaries aged 35 and below and those with junior college degrees or above, according to the report.