Simplified Chinese 镇级市 Hanyu Pinyin | Traditional Chinese 鎮級市 | |
Town-level municipality (Chinese: 镇级市), Town-level city, township-level municipality, or township-level city, is a pilot designation for a type of administrative division of China. A town-level city is officially considered to be a town, but it has more power de facto because the cadres assigned to its government are one half-level higher in rank than those of an "ordinary" town—though still lower than those of a county-level city. In order to be designated as a town-level city a town must have the minimum population of 100 thousand (except for Western China and Northeast China) and cannot be a county-level division administrative seat of government also cannot be within of any national urban planning zones (suburban towns are also excluded).