A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an 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 ...
(PRC), ranking below a
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
and above a
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
in China's administrative structure.
During the Republican era, many of China's prefectural cities were designated as
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 ...
as the country's second level division below a province. From 1949 to 1983, the official term was a province-administrated city (Chinese: 省辖市). Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative structure (alongside
prefectures,
league
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
Sports
* Sports league
* Rugby league, full contact footba ...
s and
autonomous prefecture
Autonomous prefectures () are one type of autonomous administrative divisions of China, existing at the prefectural level, with either ethnic minorities forming over 50% of the population or being the historic home of significant minorities. A ...
s). Administrative chiefs (mayors) of prefectural level cities generally have the same rank as a division chief () of a national ministry. Since the 1980s, most former prefectures have been renamed into prefectural level cities.
A prefectural level city is a "city" () and "prefecture" () that have been merged into one consolidated and unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal entry with subordinate districts, and a prefecture with subordinate county-level cities and counties which is an administrative division of a province.
A prefectural level city is often not a "city" in the usual sense of the term (i.e., a large continuous urban settlement), but instead an administrative unit comprising, typically, a main central urban area (the core city, city as in the usual sense, usually with the same name as the prefectural level city) surrounded by
rural
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
areas, which together are divided into districts, and some surrounding counties or county-level cities governed by the prefecture-level city on behalf of the province, which all have their own urban areas surrounded by their own rural areas. The urban areas of the surrounding counties are usually smaller than the core urban area, and towns also form small urban areas scattered in the rural. The larger prefectural level cities span over .
Prefectural level cities nearly always contain multiple
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, and other such sub-divisions. This results from the fact that the formerly predominant prefectures, which prefectural level cities have mostly replaced, were themselves large administrative units containing cities, smaller towns, and rural areas. To distinguish a prefectural level city from its actual urban area (city in the strict sense), the term ''shìqū'' (市区; "urban area"), is used.
The first prefectural level cities were created on 5 November 1983. Over the following two decades, prefectural level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefectures; the process is still ongoing.
Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefectural level cities. Of the 22 provinces and five autonomous regions of the PRC, only nine provinces (
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
,
Guizhou
Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...
,
Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
,
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
,
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
,
Gansu,
Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
,
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 ...
, and
Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...
) and three autonomous regions (
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
,
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
, and
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
) have at least one or more
second level or prefectural level divisions that are not prefectural level cities. In the case of the
disputed Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, it has six prefectural level cities, but these are
governed separately by the
Republic of China as their
special municipalities.
Criteria that a
prefecture must meet to become a prefectural level city:
* An urban centre with a non-rural population over 250,000
* gross output of value of industry of 200,000,000
RMB
The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...
(
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
32 million)
* the output of the
tertiary sector
The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...
supersedes that of the
primary sector
The primary sector of the economy includes any Industry (economics), industry involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, fishing, forestry and mining.
The primary sector tends to make up a larger portio ...
, contributing over 35% of the
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
Fifteen large prefectural level cities have been granted the status of
sub-provincial city, which gives them much greater autonomy.
Shijiazhuang,
Suzhou
Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...
, and
Zhengzhou are the largest prefectural level cities with populations approaching or exceeding some sub-provincial cities.
A
sub-prefecture-level city is a
county-level city
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 ...
with powers approaching those of prefectural level cities.
Classification
There are a total of three classifications of prefecture-level cities:
*Regular prefectural level city, which consists of
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, and
districts subdivisions.
*Consolidated district-governed prefectural level city, which only consists of
districts as subdivisions.
** Currently there are only 13 cities under this classification:
Ezhou
Ezhou () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Hubei Province, China. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 1,079,353, of which 695,697 lived in the core Echeng District. The Ezhou - Huanggang built-up (''or metro'') area was home ...
,
Foshan,
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
,
Haikou
Haikou (; ), also spelled as Hoikow is the capital and most populous city of the Chinese province of Hainan. Haikou city is situated on the northern coast of Hainan, by the mouth of the Nandu River. The northern part of the city is on the ...
,
Karamay
Karamay is a prefecture-level city in the north of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The name of the city comes from the Uyghur language and means "black oil", referring to the oil fields near the city.
Karamay ...
,
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
,
Sansha ,
Sanya
Sanya (; also spelled Samah) is the southernmost city on Hainan Island, and one of the four prefecture-level cities of Hainan Province in South China.
According to the 2020 census, the total population of Sanya was 1,031,396 inhabitants, li ...
,
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 province ...
,
Wuhai
Wuhai (; mn, ''Üqai qota'', Mongolian cyrillic.Үхай хот) is a prefecture-level city and regional center in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, and is by area the smallest prefecture-level division of the region. It is located ...
,
Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China ...
,
Xiamen
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an ...
, and
Zhuhai
Zhuhai (, ; Yale: ''Jyūhói''), also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, on the southeastern edge of Pear ...
*Prefectural level city with no county-level divisions (direct-piped city), which are cities that do not govern any county-level divisions such as counties, county level cities, or legal administrative districts.
** Currently there are only four cities under this classification:
Danzhou
Danzhou () is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of the Chinese island province of Hainan. Although called a "city", Danzhou administers a large area which was called Dan County or Danxian () until 1993. The administrative seat and urban ...
,
Dongguan
Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the s ...
,
Jiayuguan, and
Zhongshan
Zhongshan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China. As of the 2020 census, the whole city with 4,418,060 inhabitants is now part of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen conurbation with 65,565,622 ...
Cartographic expression and statistics
In Europe and North America, cities are generally represented as points, while counties are represented as areas. Thus,
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County, Indiana, Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the List of municipalities in Indiana, seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside ...
, is indicated on the map by a point, which is distinct from, and enclosed by, the area of
Monroe County, Indiana
Monroe County is a county in the U.S. state of Indiana. In 1910 the US Census Bureau calculated the nation's mean population center to lie in Monroe County. The population was 137,974 at the 2010 United States Census. The county seat is Bloomin ...
. In China, however, large cities such as Xianning may, in reality, contain both urban and rural elements. Moreover, they may enclose counties or other cities. On a less detailed map, Xianning would be indicated by a point, more or less corresponding to the coordinates of its city government. Other populous areas may also be exhibited as points, such as the county of
Tongshan, with no indication that Tongshan is, in fact, enclosed by Xianning. On a more detailed map, Xianning would be drawn as an area, similar to a county of the United States, and Tongshan would be drawn as a smaller area within Xianning.
This convention may lead to difficulty in the identification of places mentioned in older sources. For example,
Guo Moruo
Guo Moruo (; November 16, 1892 – June 12, 1978), courtesy name Dingtang (), was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official.
Biography
Family history
Guo Moruo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born on November ...
writes that he was born in the town of Shawan, within the prefecture of Leshan, and attended primary school in the town of Jiading. A modern map is unlikely to show either town: Shawan, because it is too small, and Jiading, because it is the seat of Leshan, and is therefore indicated on the map by a point labelled "Leshan." A more detailed map would show Shawan as a district within Leshan, but Jiading would still be missing.
Statistics of China such as population and industrial activity are generally reported along prefectural city lines. Thus, the relatively unknown city of
Huangshi
Huangshi (), Postal Map Romanization, alternatively romanized as Hwangshih, is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Hubei province, People's Republic of China.
Its population was 2,469,079 inhabitants at the 2020 census; 1,567,108 of whom liv ...
has 2.5 million residents, more than most European capitals, but upon closer inspection, the city covers an area almost 100 kilometers across. Furthermore, Huangshi contains several other cities, such as
Daye
Daye () is a county-level city in eastern Hubei province, China. It is under the administration of the Huangshi prefecture-level city.
As it is usually the case with county-level cities, Daye includes both an urban core and a fair amount of rural ...
. If a person wished to calculate the population of the urban area of Huangshi, and had a map of Huangshi, and a table of its population by district, the task might not be easy. The urban area might be split between several districts, and some of those districts may include rural elements as well.
Prefecture-level city list
As of June 2020, there are 299 prefecture-level cities total:
Dissolved prefecture-level cities
See also
*
Administrative divisions of China
The administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since ancient times, due to China's large population and geographical area. The constitution of China provides for three levels of government. However in practice, there a ...
*
Provincial city
*
List of prefectures in China
All provincial-level divisions of China are divided into prefectural-level divisions (second-level): prefectural-level cities, prefectures, autonomous prefectures and leagues. There are 333 prefecture level divisions in China as of January ...
*
Top prefecture-level cities by GDP
*
Top prefecture-level cities by GDP per capita
*
List of cities in China by population
China is the world's most populous country. According to Demographia, in 2017 there were 102 Chinese cities with over 1 million people in the "urban area", as defined by the group's methodology.
Definition and classification
According to the ad ...
*
List of cities in China
According to the administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China there are three levels of cities, namely provincial-level (consists of municipalities ), prefecture-level cities, and county-level cities. As of June 2020 the PRC has ...
*
List of twin towns and sister cities in China
This is a list of places in China which have standing links to local communities in other countries known as "town twinning" (usually in Europe) or "sister cities" (usually in the rest of the world).
A
Anqing
* Calabasas, United States
* C ...
*
List of capitals in China
The scope of this list is limited to capital cities of first-level administrative divisions such as provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, and special administrative regions, also including sub-provincial cities which are governed by ...
*
List of urban agglomerations in China
China is the world's most populous country. According to Demographia, in 2017 there were 102 Chinese cities with over 1 million people in the "urban area", as defined by the group's methodology.
Definition and classification
According to the ad ...
*
Global city
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prefecture-Level City
*Pref