County-level city

A county-level city (Chinese: 县级市; pinyin: xiànjí shì) is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are usually governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions.

Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing counties. This process was halted in 1997.

County-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 counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing towns, villages, and farmland. To distinguish a "county-level city" from its actual urban area (the traditional meaning of the word "city"), the term 市区 shìqū, or "urban area", is used.

Comparable territorial divisions in other countries

In France, an equivalent of a county-level city is an agglomeration community.

While the idea of a "city" being a unit consisting of several "towns" is not a common one in English-speaking world, a somewhat similar naming convention is used for Local Government Areas in some parts of Australia. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a "city" (rather than a traditional "shire"), and consist of "towns". E.g. City of Blue Mountains is made of a number of towns (Katoomba, Springwood, etc.).

Sub-prefecture-level cities

A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include Jiyuan (Henan province), Xiantao (Hubei), and Golmud (Qinghai).

See also

• County of China
• Provincial city
• Political divisions of China
• Agglomeration communities in Francede:Stadtbezirk (China)

fr:Ville-comté ja:県級市