Direct-controlled municipalities of the People's Republic of China
| Municipality 直辖市 Zhíxiáshì |
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|---|---|
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| Category | First-level administration Unitary state |
| Location | People's Republic of China |
| Number | 4 (#1 Beijing; #2 Tianjin; #3 Chongqing; #4 Shanghai) |
| Populations | 12,938,224 (Tianjin) – 28,846,170 (Chongqing) |
| Areas | 2,448.1 square miles (6,341 km2) (Shanghai) – 31,816 square miles (82,400 km2) (Chongqing) |
| Government | Dual-Party government |
| Subdivisions | District, county, autonomous county |
A municipality (simplified Chinese: 直辖市; traditional Chinese: 直轄市; pinyin: zhíxiáshì), also translated as direct-controlled municipality (formally, municipality directly under the central government, or province-level municipality), is the highest level of classification for cities used by the People's Republic of China. These cities have the same rank as provinces, and form part of the first tier of administrative divisions of China.
A municipality is a "city" (Chinese: 市; pinyin: shì) with "provincial" (Chinese: 省级; pinyin: shěngjí) power under a unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city and a province of its own right.
A municipality is often not a "city" in the usual sense of the term (i.e., a large continuous urban settlement), but instead an administrative unit comprising, typically, a main central urban area (a city in the usual sense, usually with the same name as the municipality), and its much larger surrounding rural area containing many smaller cities (districts and subdistricts), towns and villages. The larger municipality spans over 100 kilometres (62 mi). To distinguish a "municipality" from its actual urban area (the traditional meaning of the word city), the term Chinese: 市区, or "urban area", is used.
The first municipalities were the 11 cities of Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Chongqing, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Hankou (now part of Wuhan), Shenyang, and Harbin when the ROC government ruled China. They were established in 1927 soon after they were designated as "cities" during the 1920s. Nominally, Dalian was a municipality as well, although it was under Japanese control. These cities were first called special municipalities/cities (特别市; 特別市; tébiéshì), but were later renamed Yuan-controlled municipalities (院辖市; 院轄市; yuànxiáshì), then direct-controlled municipalities (直辖市; 直轄市; zhíxiáshì) by the Central Government.
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