Research

Source: National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook, 2014

Figure 1.17
China's eastern regions account for the highest rates of urbanization. Municipalities including Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin have urbanization rates between 80 and 90 per cent, while other eastern provinces such as Guangdong, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian have urbanization rates between 60 and 70 per cent.

* Since 1987, China has been implementing a strategy to manage urbanization by supporting the growth of small cities, developing medium-sized cities and limiting the size of big cities. In order to promote the urbanization steadily at this stage, help the migrant population to settle in the cities and ensure they are gradually covered by the basic urban public services, the Government issued the Opinions on Further Promoting Reform of Household Registration Systemin 2014, and as one of the measures, to adjust the household registration policy for migrants. The government will completely lift restrictions on household registration in towns and small cities (which are officially classified as cities with less than 500,000 people), gradually relax the restrictions in medium-sized cities (500,000-1,000,000 people), properly set qualifications for registration in big cities (1-5 million people), and strictly control the population scale in mega cities (over 5 million people).