China, the world's largest agriculture country in terms of farming population, had 229.78 million farmer-turned workers as of 2009, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier, said the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) Wednesday.

Among them, 145.33 million had left their rural homes to work in cities as migrant workers, while the other 84.45 million were working in their hometowns.

China's prosperous eastern regions remained most migrant workers' top choice, with 90.76 million of them working there as of 2009, but the figure was down by 8.9 percent compared with the previous year.

Meanwhile, the relatively underdeveloped western and central regions had attracted more people in the past year as the government had stepped up efforts to develop those regions.

The average monthly income of migrant workers grew 5.7 percent year on year to 1,417 yuan (207.5 U.S. dollars), said the NBS.