Prefecture-level cities

A prefecture-level city (Chinese: 地级市; pinyin: dìjí shì; literally "region-level city") or prefecture-level municipality is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China, ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. Prefecture-level cities form the second level of the administrative structure (alongside prefectures, leagues and autonomous prefectures). Since the 1980s, prefecture-level cities have mostly replaced the prefecture administrative unit.

A road sign shows distance to "Huangshi urban area" (黄石市区) rather than simply "Huangshi" (黄石). This is a useful distinction, because the sign is located already within Huangshi prefecture-level city (immediately upon entering its Yangxin County from the neighboring Xianning), but still 100 km from Huangshi main urban area.

A prefecture-level city is not 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. This results from the fact that the formerly predominant prefectures, which prefecture-level cities have mostly replaced, were themselves large administrative units containing cities, smaller towns, and rural areas. 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.

The first prefecture-level cities were created on 5 November 1983. Over the following two decades, prefecture-level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefectures; the process is still ongoing.

Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefecture-level cities. Of the 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions of China, only 3 provinces (Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai) and 2 autonomous regions (Xinjiang, Tibet) have more than three second-level or prefecture-level divisions that are not prefecture-level cities.

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

• An urban centre with a non-rural 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, exceeding 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 is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities.

Cartographic expression and statistics

In most European or North American countries there a clear distinction between "cities" and counties, prefectures, etc. The former are typically thought of as a "point" objects, and shown on maps with a circle or other such scale-less sign; the latter, if shown at all, are shown as areas with clearly defined borders. The distinction is obvious, since e.g. Bloomington, Indiana or Penticton, British Columbia are always thought of as distinct objects from, respectively, Monroe County, Indiana or the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen for which they are their respective seats of governments. In China, however, the same name (e.g., 咸宁市 (Xianning Shi) in Chinese, or Xianning [City] in English) are used to refer both to an entire "prefecture-level city" and to its urban core (what one would call a "city" in Europe or North America). This results in somewhat different mapping conventions used in China vs. most other countries.

Typically, a less detailed map - one that does not show administrative divisions below the provincial level - would merely mark the location of the urban core (or, more precisely, that of the city government) with a circle, just like cities are shown on a map of a European or American country. The circle would be labeled with the name of the city (e.g. 咸宁市 (Xianning Shi) in Chinese, or Xianning in English) rather than, for example, that of the district within which the urban core may be located. The same map may also show other sufficiently large populated places within the same prefecture-level city, labeling them based on what third-level administrative units they correspond to. For example, along with Xianning, a map may show Tongshan without indicating in any way that administratively, the latter is part of the former.

A more detailed map (e.g., a typical provincial map) would also show the border of each second-level administrative unit (such as a prefecture-level city), much like an American county may be shown on a US state map. In this case, the same unit name (such as 咸宁市, Xianning [City]) would be used to label the entire area. Within it, division of the second-level unit into the third-level unit may be shown as well.

This convention may sometimes make it difficult to identify places mentioned in older sources with places shown on modern maps. For example, Guo Moruo tells in his autobiography that he was born in the small town of Shawan, Leshan Prefecture, and attended primary school in Jiading, the main town of the prefecture. A typical modern map is unlikely to show either town: Shawan, because it's too small, and Jiading, because it is the seat of government for the today's prefecture-level city of Leshan, and thus is marked on a modern map by a circle labeled "Leshan". A more detailed map (or Google Maps) would show Shawan District within Leshan, but, most likely, no Jiading per se - just Jiading Street (嘉定路) within Leshan's urban area.

Chinese statistical data (area, population, industrial production value, etc) are typically reported for the entire prefecture-level city, as well as for its constituent third-level units. Thus, a person not familiar with these conventions may be surprised to learn that a comparatively little known city of Huangshi, Hubei, has 2.5 million residents - more than most European capital cities - until he realizes that this number corresponds to an entire prefecture-level area of almost 100 km across, covering several places (such as Daye) that are described as (county-level) "cities" in their own right. Even if the reader has a map and the data for individual third-level units, arriving to the population count for the actual main urban area of a prefecture-level city may not be easy, because it may be split between several districts, some of which may stretch far out into the rural area as well.

See also

• List of prefecture-level divisions of China
• Sub-provincial city (People's Republic of China)
• Provincial city (Republic of China)
• Political divisions of China