Sub-provincial city

A sub-provincial division (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: fùshĕngjí xíngzhèngqū) (or deputy-provincial divisions) in the People's Republic of China, is like a prefecture-level city that is governed by a province, but is administered independently in regard to economy and law.

Sub-provincial divisions, similar to prefectural-level divisions, an administrative unit comprising, typically, a main central urban area, and its much larger surrounding rural area containing many smaller cities, towns and villages.

The mayor or chairman of a sub-provincial division is equal in status to a vice-governor of a province. Its status is below that of municipalities, which are independent and equivalent to provinces, but above other, regular prefecture-level divisions, which are completely ruled by their provinces. However, they are marked as same as other provincial capitals (or prefecture-level city if not provincial capital) in almost all maps.

The original 16 municipalities were renamed as sub-provincial municipalities on 25 February 1994 by the Central Organization Committee out of prefecture-level municipalities. They are mostly the capitals of the provinces in which they are located.

Currently, there are 15 sub-provincial municipalities after Chongqing was designated direct-control:

Chongqing was formerly a sub-provincial municipality of Sichuan until 14 March 1997, when it was made an independent municipality by splitting it out of Sichuan altogether. Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps also has the powers of a sub-provincial city.

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