List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population
This list ranks cities in China, by population. The cities are listed by built-up area adjusted to Local Government Authorities encompassed by built up area (i.e., Districts, Cities or Counties). A built up area can be made of several cities (e.g., Guangzhou–Dongguan–Shenzhen, Shanghai–Suzhou, Shenyang–Fushun, Anshan–Liaoyang, etc.). According to the administrative divisions of China, there are three levels of cities, namely municipalities (直辖市), prefecture-level cities (地级市), and county-level cities (县级市). The Special Administrative Regions (S.A.R.s) of Hong Kong and Macau are not included.
Municipalities and prefecture-level cities are not each 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. 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. However, even this term often encompasses large suburban regions often greater than 1,000 square miles (3,000 km2), sometimes only the urban core whereas the agglomeration overtake the city limits. Thus, the "urban core" would be roughly comparable to the US term "city limit", the "shìqū or urban area" would be roughly comparable to "metropolitan area", and the municipality is a political designation defining regions under control of a municipal government, having no comparable division.
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