List of cities in China

According to the administrative divisions of China including Hong Kong and Macau, there are three level of cities, namely provincial-level (consists of municipalities and SARs), prefectural-level cities, and county-level cities. As of January 2016 the PRC has a total of 660 cities: 4 municipalities, 2 SARs, 291 prefectural-level cities (including the 15 sub-provincial cities) and 363 county-level cities (including the 10 sub-prefectural cities and 9 XXPC cities) not including any cities in the claimed province of Taiwan.

Based on 2010 census data, the largest cities are the four centrally administered municipalities, which include dense urban areas, suburbs, and large rural areas: Chongqing (28.84 million), Shanghai (23.01 million), Beijing (19.61 million), and Tianjin (12.93 million). There are 105 cities with over 1 million people in the metropolitan area as of 2015.

The tier system

References are sometimes made in the media to "tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, or tier 4" cities. A clear official definition is hard to find, but generally: