According to the

administrative divisions Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, there are three levels of cities: provincial-level cities (consisting of directly-administered municipalities and the special administrative regions of

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

), prefecture-level cities, and

county-level cities , map = , category = Third level administrative division of a unitary state , territory = People's Republic of China , upper_unit = Prefectures, Provinces , start_date = , current_number = 411 (408 controlled, 3 claimed) , number_da ...

. As of January 2024, the PRC has a total of 707 cities: 4 municipalities, 2 SARs, 293 prefecture-level cities (including the 15 sub-provincial cities) and 408 county-level cities (including the 38 sub-prefectural cities and 12 XXPC cities). This list does not include any cities in the disputed

Taiwan Province Taiwan Province ( zh, t=臺灣省 , p=Táiwān Shěng , poj=Tâi-oân-séng; PFS: ''Thòi-vàn-sén'' or ''Thòi-vân-sén'') is a ''de jure'' administrative division of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Provinces remain a titular division as ...

and portions of Fujian Province, which are claimed by the PRC under the One China Policy, as these areas are controlled by the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

(see the List of cities in Taiwan). Prefecture-level cities nearly always contain multiple

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

(县), county-level cities, and other such sub-divisions. Because of this, prefecture-level cities often overlap in area with county-level cities. Four cities are centrally administered municipalities, which include dense urban areas, suburbs, and large rural areas:

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

(32.05 million),

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

(24.87 million),

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

(21.89 million), and

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

(13.87 million). In 2024, there were 105 cities governed by the People's Republic of China with an urban population of over 1 million.

List of cities

Contemporary cities

Types of cities

Renamed cities

Dissolved cities

Tier system

The Chinese central government introduced a ranking system in the 1980s to facilitate the staged rollout of infrastructure and urban development throughout the country. Cities were ranked by tier according to the government's development priorities. The tier system began as a bureaucratic classification, but has since the later 1990s acquired new salience from the perspectives of real estate development, commercial vitality and cosmopolitanness, besides the old notions of population, economic size, and political ranking. It has now become a proxy for demographic and social segmentation in China, especially relevant to those college-educated seeking non-governmental employment. It is the general consensus that four cities, namely

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

, belong to the first tier, while tier II includes other major cities. Small and medium cities are grouped into tier III or IV.

Republic of China (1912–1949)

:Note: All names are transliterated in pinyin. ;Fu (府) cities ;Shi () cities

References

External links

China City Forum

China City Development Institute
- academic organization
China Historical Geographic Information System
(and Placename Search Engine) {{Navboxes , list = {{Asia topic, List of cities in {{China topics, state=autocollapse 01

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

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