 | ||
This list ranks cities in China, by population. The cities are listed by built-up area adjusted to Local Government Authorities encompassed by built up area (i.e., Districts, Cities or Counties). A built up area can be made of several cities (e.g., Guangzhou–Dongguan–Shenzhen, Shanghai–Suzhou, Shenyang–Fushun, Anshan–Liaoyang, etc.). According to the administrative divisions of China, there are three levels of cities, namely municipalities (直辖市), prefecture-level cities (地级市), and county-level cities (县级市). The Special Administrative Regions (S.A.R.s) of Hong Kong and Macau are not included.
Contents
Overview
Municipalities and prefecture-level cities are not each a "city" in the strictest sense of the term, but instead an administrative unit comprising, typically, both an urban core (a city in the strict sense) and surrounding rural or less-urbanized areas usually many times the size of the central, built-up core. Prefecture-level cities nearly always contain multiple counties, county-level cities, and other such sub-divisions. To distinguish a prefecture-level city from its actual urban area (city in the strict sense), the term "市区" (shìqū; "urban area") is used. However, even this term often encompasses large suburban regions often greater than 1,000 square miles (3,000 km2), sometimes only the urban core whereas the agglomeration overtake the city limits. Thus, the "urban core" would be roughly comparable to the US term "city limit", the "shìqū or urban area" would be roughly comparable to "metropolitan area", and the municipality is a political designation defining regions under control of a municipal government, having no comparable division.
The population of the official Chinese urban area is listed beside. The larger municipality figure is the wider administrative area population, which includes suburban and rural areas as of the 2010 census. The list contains all cities with the administrative designation "sub-provincial city" (副省级城市), many are "Prefecture level cities" and "Provincial capitals" (省会). "Special Economic Zones" (经济特区城市), "National Central Cities" (国家中心城市) and some Council-Level cities.
List
Levels: Sub-provincial = sub-provincial city; Prefecture-level = prefecture-level city; County-level = county-level city.
Status: Prov. Capital = provincial capital; National Centre = national central city; Special Econ. Zones = Special Economic Zones; Special Admin. Region = special administrative region.