According to the

administrative divisions Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

of the People's Republic of China there are three levels of cities, namely provincial-level (consists of

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

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 Chin ...

, and

county-level cities 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. County-level ...

. As of June 2020 the PRC has a total of 687 cities: 4 municipalities, 2 SARs, 293 prefectural-level cities (including the 15 sub-provincial cities) and 388 county-level cities (including the 38 sub-prefectural cities and 10 XXPC cities). This list does not include any cities in the

disputed Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...

Taiwan Province Taiwan Province (; PFS: ''Thòi-vàn-sén'' or ''Thòi-vân-sén'') is a nominal administrative division of the Republic of China (ROC). Its definition has remained part of the Constitution of the Republic of China, but the province is no lon ...

and portions of Fujian Province (see the

List of cities in Taiwan In the structural hierarchy of the administrative divisions in the Republic of China (Taiwan), there are three types of administrative divisions under its territorial control with the Mandarin word shì (市, "city") in their names. There a ...

), as these are controlled by the Republic of China and claimed by the PRC under the

One-China policy The term One China may refer to one of the following: * The One China principle is the position held by the People's Republic of China (PRC) that there is only one sovereign state under the name China, with the PRC serving as the sole legit ...

. Four cities are centrally administered municipalities, which include dense urban areas, suburbs, and large rural areas:

Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Cou ...

(28.84 million), Shanghai (23.01 million),

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 2 ...

(19.61 million), and Tianjin (12.93 million). According to 2017 research from the Demographia research group, there are 102 cities governed by the People's Republic of China with an "urban area" 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

, Shanghai, Guangzhou,

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provin ...

, 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 ForumChina 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 city China .C C