"There live ..."

Hello,

I often hear German pupils say (when giving a talk about a country):

(1) "There live (...) million people in (...)"

I tell them to start their sentence with the subject.

-->(2) "(...) million people live in (...)"


Is ONLY the second way correct, or can a sentence like this be started differently? What other ways are there to express the same? (You want to tell somebody how many people live in a country.) I'd be grateful for some examples.

Tom

What about

'There are (...) million people living in (...)?

<I tell them to start their sentence with the subject. >

Why do you do that?

because otherwise it sounds like the answer to a question.
.

Sorry i'll be more precise:

Aquatars answer is the ones which sounds best. Tom's #2 sounds like an answer to a question, Toms #1 just sounds really weird, a native speaker would never say that.

But I've heard "there lives...", "there exist...". Isn't it called the "existential there" or something?

>>But I've heard "there lives...", "there exist...". Isn't it called the "existential there" or something?<<

True, but for some reason 'There live' doesn't sound right.