County-level city
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| Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China |
| Province level |
|---|
| Provinces |
| Autonomous regions |
| Municipalities |
| Special Administrative Regions (SARs) |
| Prefecture level |
| Prefectures Autonomous prefectures |
| Prefecture-level cities Sub-provincial cities |
| Leagues |
| County level |
| Counties Autonomous counties |
| County-level cities Sub-prefecture-level cities |
| City districts |
| Banners Autonomous banners |
| Township level |
| Townships (ethnic) Sumu (ethnic) |
| Towns |
| Subdistricts |
| County districts (defunct) |
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.
[edit] 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.).
[edit] 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).
