Prefecture-level city

This article is part of the series: Political divisions of China
Province level
Provinces
Autonomous regions
Municipalities
Special Administrative Regions
Prefecture level
Prefectures
Autonomous prefectures
Prefecture-level cities
(incl. Sub-provincial cities)
Leagues
County level
Districts
Counties
Autonomous counties
County-level cities
(incl. Sub-prefecture-level cities)
Banners
Autonomous banners
Township level
District public officess
Townships
Ethnic townships
Towns
Subdistricts
Sumu
Ethnic sumu

A prefecture-level city (地级市 Pinyin: dìjí shì, literally "region-level city") is an administrative division of China that is governed directly by provincess of the People's Republic of China. Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefecture-level cities. Of the 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions of Mainland China, only 3 provinces (Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai) and 2 autonomous regions (Xinjiang, Tibet) have more than three prefecture-level divisions that are not prefecture-level cities.

The term provincial city is sometimes used to refer to prefecture-level cities, though this term is usually used to refer to another type of city in the Republic of China.

A prefecture-level city ranks lower than municipality, and ranks higher than county-level cities. The first ones were created on November 5, 1983. Over the next 20 years, prefecture-level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefecturess. This process is still ongoing.

Prefecture-level cities are not "cities" in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban, built-up area. This is because the prefectures that prefecture-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing cities, towns, and farmland. To distinguish a "prefecture-level city" from its actual urban area (the traditional meaning of the word "city"), the term 市区 shìqū, or "urban area", is used.

Criteria that a prefecture of China must meet to become a prefecture-level city:

• An urban centre with a non-farmer population over 250,000
• gross output of value of industry of 200,000,000 RMB
• the output of tertiary industry supersedes that of primary industry
• Over 35% of the GDP

Baoding (Hebei Province), Zhoukou (Henan), Nanyang (Henan), and Linyi (Shandong) are the largest prefecture-level cities, superceding the population of Tianjin, the least populous municipality.

15 large prefecture-level cities have been granted the status of sub-provincial city, which gives them much greater autonomy.

A sub-prefecture-level city (副地級市), or vice-prefecture-level city, are county-level cities with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include Jiyuan (Henan province), Xiantao (Hubei), and Golmud (Qinghai).

See also: Provincial city, Political divisions of China