A county-level municipality (), county-level city or county city, formerly known as prefecture-controlled city (1949–1970: ; 1970–1983: ), is a county-level administrative division of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. County-level cities have

judicial The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

but no

legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...

rights over their own

local law A local ordinance is a law issued by a local government. such as a municipality, county, parish, prefecture, or the like. China In Hong Kong, all laws enacted by the territory's Legislative Council remain to be known as ''Ordinances'' () af ...

and are usually governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions. A county-level city is a "city" () and "county" () that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal entity and a county which is an administrative division of a prefecture. Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing denser populated

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

. County-level cities are not "

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

" in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban, built-up area. This is because the counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

and farmland. To distinguish a "county-level city" from its actual urban area (the traditional meaning of the word "city"), the term "" (shìqū) or "urban area", is used.

Comparable territorial divisions in other countries

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, an equivalent of a county-level city is an

agglomeration community An agglomeration community (french: communauté d'agglomération) is a government structure in France, created by the Chevènement Law of 1999. It is one of four forms of intercommunality, less integrated than a métropole or a communauté u ...

. While the idea of a "city" being a unit consisting of several "towns" is not a common one in

English-speaking world Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest languag ...

, a somewhat similar naming convention is used for

local government areas A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a state, province, division, or territory. The phrase i ...

in some parts of Australia. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a "city" (rather than a traditional "shire"), and consist of "towns". E.g.

City of Blue Mountains The City of Blue Mountains is a local government area of New South Wales, Australia, governed by the Blue Mountains City Council. The city is located in the Blue Mountains range west of Sydney. The Mayor of Blue Mountains City Council is coun ...

is made of a number of towns ( Katoomba, Springwood, etc.). Another example would be "municipal government" in the Canadian province of Ontario. Small municipalities (cities) and towns, along with urban, sub-urban and rural areas were merged or integrated into a "super" area, in part to obtain economies in administrative overhead by not having for each city and town individual library commissions, fire fighting units, health care, and other social services common to all areas.

List

As of February 2022, there are 397 county-level cities in total:

Sub-prefectural cities

sub-prefectural city A sub-prefectural municipality (), sub-prefectural city, or vice-prefectural municipality, is an unofficial designation for a type of administrative division of China. A sub-prefectural city is officially considered to be a county-level city, bu ...

is a county-level city with powers approaching those of

prefecture-level cities A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of China' ...

. Examples include,

Xiantao Xiantao () is a sub-prefecture-level city in the east of Hubei province, China. Located at the Jianghan Plain in the middle of Hubei province and spanning 112°55' – 113°49' east longitude and 30°04' – 30°32' north latitude, Xiantao City c ...

(

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

), Qianjiang (

Tianmen Tianmen () is a sub-prefecture-level city (sometimes considered a county-level city) in central Hubei Province, China. It is on the Jianghan Plain, on the west side of Wuhan (the biggest city of Central China, as well as the capital of Hubei) ...

(

) and

Jiyuan Jiyuan () is a sub-prefecture-level city in northwestern Henan province, People's Republic of China. It borders the prefecture-level cities of Jiaozuo and Luoyang to the east and southwest respectively, as well as the province of Shanxi to the n ...

(

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

References

Understanding the Chinese Economies, Rongxing Guo · 2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:County-Level City Administrative divisions of China *Cou County-level divisions of the People's Republic of China

Comparable territorial divisions in other countries

List

Sub-prefectural cities

See also

References