The Delineation and Characterisation of Chinese Urbanised Areas Using Micro-Scale Population Census Data

Yumin Ye, Yike Tang and Jiejing Wang ()
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Yumin Ye: School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Yike Tang: School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Jiejing Wang: School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: The definition of cities from the physical view in China is lacking. Most research regarding Chinese cities relies on the definition from the administrative view, which is often inconsistent as there are serious discrepancies between the administrative boundaries and the physical extent of Chinese cities. This study aims to delineate Chinese urbanised areas using population census data at the township level and analyse the identified urbanised areas’ characteristics. The results show that the numbers of Chinese urbanised areas in 2000, 2010, and 2020 were 758, 942, and 1058, respectively, indicating there are several ‘cities outside the system’ that meet the requirements of urban agglomeration but are constrained by the city designation system. The degree of population aggregation and the growth rate of urbanised areas are greater than those of administrative cities. This indicates that the geographical scopes of administrative cities cannot accurately reflect the ‘real’ urban areas. Additionally, the city-size distribution follows Zipf’s law, with the Zipf coefficient moving closer to one if we fit the Zipf model based on the urbanised areas. It is necessary to establish official urbanised areas and publish statistical data based on urbanised areas, which could have significant implications both for policymakers and researchers.

Keywords: urbanised area; administrative cities; China; city-size distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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