List of cities in China

This list does not include any cities in the disputed Taiwan Province and portions of Fujian Province, which are claimed by the PRC under the One China Policy, as these areas are controlled by the Republic of China (see the List of cities in Taiwan).

[4] The Chinese central government introduced a ranking system in the 1980s to facilitate the staged rollout of infrastructure and urban development throughout the country.

[5] 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.

3Prefecture capital status established by Heilongjiang Province and not recognized by Ministry of Civil Affairs.

5The claimed province of Taiwan no longer have any internal division announced by Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC, due to lack of actual jurisdiction.