Political divisions of China Totally Explained

Everything about Political Divisions Of China totally explained

Due to China's large population and area, the political divisions of China have consisted of several levels since ancient times. The constitution of the People's Republic of China provides for three de jure levels of government. Currently, however, there are five practical (de facto) levels of local government: the province, prefecture, county, township, and village.
The provinces serve an important cultural role in China. Many people tend to identify with their native province. Most of the provinces of China have boundaries which were established in the late Ming Dynasty. Major changes since then have been the reorganization of provinces in the northeast after the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the formation of autonomous regions which are based on Soviet nationality theory.

Levels

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China provides for three levels: the province, county, and township. However, two more levels have been inserted in actual implementation: the prefecture, under provinces; and the village, under townships. There is a sixth level, the district public office, below counties, but it's being abolished. The People's Republic of China administers 33 province-level regions, 333 prefecture-level regions, 2,862 county-level regions, 41,636 township-level regions, and several village-level regions.
Each of the levels correspond to a level in the Civil service of the People's Republic of China.

Summary

This table summarizes the divisions of the area administered by the People's Republic of China as of December 31, 2005.

Level	Name	Types
1	Province level	Provinces (省 shěng) (22) Autonomous regions (自治区 zìzhìqū) (5) Municipalities (直辖市 zhíxiáshì) (4) Special administrative regions (特别行政区 tèbié xíngzhèngqū) (2)
2	Prefecture level	Prefectures (地区 dìqū) (17) Autonomous prefectures (自治州 zìzhìzhōu) (30) Prefecture-level cities (地级市 dìjíshì) (283) Leagues (盟 méng) (3)
3	County level	Counties (县 xiàn) (1,464) Autonomous counties (自治县 zìzhìxiàn) (117) County-level cities (县级市 xiànjíshì) (374) Districts (市辖区 shìxiáqū) (852) Banners (旗 qí) (49) Autonomous banners (自治旗 zìzhìqí) (3) Forestry areas (林区 línqū) (1) Special districts (特区 tèqū) (2)
4	Township level	Townships (乡 xiāng) (14,677) Ethnic townships (民族乡 mínzúxiāng) (1,092) Towns (镇 zhèn) (19,522) Subdistricts (街道办事处 jiēdàobànshìchù) (6,152) District public offices (区公所 qūgōngsuǒ) (11) Sumu (苏木 sūmù) (181) Ethnic sumu (民族苏木 mínzúsūmù) (1)
5	Village level (informal)	Neighborhood committees (社区居民委员会 jūmínwěiyuánhùi) Neighborhoods or communities (社区) Village committees (村民委员会 cūnmínwěiyuánhùi) or Village groups (村民小组 cūnmínxiǎozǔ) Administrative villages (行政村 xíngzhèngcūn) Natural villages (自然村 zìráncūn)

Province level

The People's Republic of China administers 33 province-level divisions, including 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two special administrative regions:
Provinces are theoretically subservient to the PRC central government, but in practice provincial officials have a large amount of discretion with regard to economic policy. Unlike the United States, the power of the central government was (with the exception of the military) not exercised through a parallel set of institutions until the early 1990s. The actual practical power of the provinces has created what some economists call federalism with Chinese characteristics.
Most of the provinces, with the exception of the provinces in the northeast, have boundaries which were established during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Sometimes provincial borders veer markedly away from cultural or geographical boundaries, a phenomenon described as "dog's teeth interlocking" . This was an attempt by the imperial government to discourage separatism and warlordism through a divide and rule policy. Nevertheless, provinces have come to serve an important cultural role in China. People tend to be identified in terms of their native provinces, and each province has a stereotype that corresponds to their inhabitants.
The most recent administrative changes have included the elevation of Hainan (1988) and Chongqing (1997) to provincial level status and the organization of Hong Kong (1997) and Macau (1999) as Special Administrative Regions.

Provinces

Provinces are the most common type of province-level division.

Name	Pinyin	Postal map spelling	Abbreviation	Area (km²)	Capital	List of administrative divisions
Anhui	Ānhuī	Anhwei	wǎn	139,700	Hefei	List of administrative divisions
Fujian	Fújiàn	Fukien	mǐn	121,300	Fuzhou	List of administrative divisions
Gansu	Gānsù	Kansu	gān or lǒng	454,300	Lanzhou	List of administrative divisions
Guangdong	Guǎngdōng	Kwangtung	yuè	180,000	Guangzhou	List of administrative divisions
Guizhou	Gùizhōu	Kweichow	qián or gùi	176,000	Guiyang	List of administrative divisions
Hainan	Hǎinán	Hainan	qióng	34,000	Haikou	List of administrative divisions
Hebei	Héběi	Hopeh	jì	187,700	Shijiazhuang	List of administrative divisions
Heilongjiang	Hēilóngjiāng	Heilungkiang	hēi	454,000	Harbin	List of administrative divisions
Henan	Hénán	Honan	yù	167,000	Zhengzhou	List of administrative divisions
Hubei	Húběi	Hupeh	è	185,900	Wuhan	List of administrative divisions
Hunan	Húnán	Hunan	xiāng	210,000	Changsha	List of administrative divisions
Jiangsu	Jiāngsū	Kiangsu	sū	102,600	Nanjing	List of administrative divisions
Jiangxi	Jiāngxī	Kiangsi	gàn	167,000	Nanchang	List of administrative divisions
Jilin	Jílín	Kirin	jí	187,400	Changchun	List of administrative divisions
Liaoning	Liáoníng	Fengtien	liáo	145,900	Shenyang	List of administrative divisions
Qinghai	Qīnghǎi	Tsinghai	qīng	721,200	Xining	List of administrative divisions
Shaanxi	Shǎnxī	Shensi	shǎn or		Shāndōng	Shantung	lǔ	153,800	Jinan	List of administrative divisions
Shanxi	Shānxī	Shansi	jìn	156,300	Taiyuan	List of administrative divisions
Sichuan	Sìchuān	Szechuan	chuān or shǔ	485,000	Chengdu	List of administrative divisions
Yunnan	Yúnnán	Yunnan	diān or yún	394,000	Kunming	List of administrative divisions
Zhejiang	Zhèjiāng	Chekiang	zhè	102,000	Hangzhou	List of administrative divisions

Disputed area

Name	Chinese (T)	Chinese (S)	Pinyin	Abbreviation	Capital	List of administrative divisions
Taiwan	or		Táiwān	tái	Jhongsing Village	List of administrative divisions

Since its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China has considered Taiwan to be its 23rd province. However, the Republic of China currently controls this province, which consists of Taiwan island and the Pescadores. The ROC also controls one county of Fuchien (or Fukien) province: Kinmen; and part of a second county: Lienchiang.

Autonomous regions

Autonomous regions are province-level divisions with a designated ethnic minority, and are guaranteed more rights under the constitution. For example, they've a chairman (where regular provinces have governors), who must be of the ethnic group as specified by the autonomous region (Tibetan, Uyghur, etc)
Autonomous regions were established after communist takeover, following Soviet nationality policy. There are five in total.

Name	pinyin	Designated minority	Local name	Abbreviation	Area (km²)	Capital	List of administrative divisions
Guangxi	Guǎngxī Zhuàngzú Zìzhìqū	Zhuang	Zhuang - Gvangjish Bouxcuengh Swcigih	Guì	236,000	Nanning	List of administrative divisions
Inner Mongolia	Nèiměnggǔ Zìzhìqū	Mongol	Mongolian - ᠥᠪᠦᠷ ᠮᠣᠨᠺᠤᠯᠤᠨ ᠥᠪᠡᠷᠲᠡᠺᠡᠨ ᠵᠠᠰᠠᠬᠤ ᠣᠷᠤᠨ / Öbür Mongghul-un Öbertegen Jasaqu Orun	Nèiměnggǔ	1,183,000	Hohhot	List of administrative divisions
Ningxia	Níngxià Húizú Zìzhìqū	Hui	(The Hui speak Chinese)	níng	66,400	Yinchuan	List of administrative divisions
Tibet	Xīzàng Zìzhìqū	Tibetan	Tibetan - བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས / Bod.raṅ.skyoṅ.ljoṅs	zàng	1,228,400	Lhasa	List of administrative divisions
Xinjiang	Xīnjiāng Wéiwúěr Zìzhìqū	Uyghur	Uyghur - شىنجاڭ ئۇيغۇر ئاپتونوم رايونى / Shinjang Uyghur Aptonom Rayoni	xīn	1,660,400	Ürümqi	List of administrative divisions

Municipalities

Municipalities are large cities that have the same administrative level as provinces. Municipalities directly control county-level divisions, without an intervening prefecture-level. In practice, the actual metropolitan area of a municipality is only a tiny fraction of its total area; the rest of the municipality consists of towns and farmland. Chongqing is an extreme example of this — the rural population of this municipality exceeds its urban population.
There are 4 municipalities in the People's Republic of China.

Name	Chinese (T)	Chinese (S)	pinyin	Abbreviation	Area (km²)	List of administrative divisions
Beijing	北京	北京	Běijīng	京 jīng	16,800	List of administrative divisions
Chongqing	重慶	重庆	Chóngqìng	渝 yú	82,300	List of administrative divisions
Shanghai	上海	上海	Shànghǎi	沪 hù	6,340.5	List of administrative divisions
Tianjin	天津	天津	Tiānjīn	津 jīn	11,305	List of administrative divisions

Special administrative regions

Special administrative regions (SARs) are local administrative regions with a high degree of autonomy under the One country, two systems arrangement, and come directly under the Central People's Government, as provided in the articles 12 of both basic laws of the two SARs.
Unlike provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, whose legal basis is provided for in Article 30 of the 1982 Constitution, special administrative regions are provided for in Article 31. The two SARs were established in 1997 and 1999 when the former European colonies were returned (from the United Kingdom and Portugal respectively) to the People's Republic of China.
Both SARs are small, and neither use the administrative structure of mainland China. Hong Kong is divided into 18 districts, each with a consultative district council. Macau is administered as a whole by the SAR Government, with no further divisions, after the Portuguese-era municipalities were abolished.

Name	Chinese (T)	Chinese (S)	a href=http://Pinyin.totallyexplained.com title="Pinyin - Totally Explained">Pinyin	Abbreviation
Hong Kong	香港	香港	Xiānggǎng	港 gǎng
Macau	澳門	澳门	Àomén	澳 ào

Prefecture level

Prefecture-level divisions are the second level of the administrative structure. As of December 31, 2005, this structure consisted of 333 divisions composed of:

prefecture-level cities (283)

prefectures (17)

autonomous prefectures (30)

Leagues (3) -- Inner Mongolia only Prefecture-level cities form the vast majority of prefecture-level divisions. Prefecture-level cities are generally composed of an urban center and surrounding rural areas much larger than the urban core, and thus are not "cities" in the strict sense of the term.
Most provinces are divided into only prefecture-level cities and contain no other second-level administrative units. Of the 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions only 3 provinces (Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai) and 2 autonomous regions (Xinjiang, Tibet) have more than three second-level or prefecture-level divisions that are not prefecture-level cities. Prefectures are another level of government found at the prefecture-level. These were formerly the dominant second-level division, which is why this administrative level is often called "prefecture-level". However, they were replaced for the most part by prefecture-level cities rom 1983 to the 1990s. Today, prefectures exist mostly in Xinjiang and Tibet only. Leagues are effectively the same as prefectures, but they're to be found only in Inner Mongolia. Like prefectures, leagues have mostly been replaced with prefecture-level cities. The unique name is a holdover from earlier forms of administration in Mongolia. Autonomous prefectures are prefectures with one or more designated ethnic minorities. These are mostly to be found in China's western regions.

County level

As of December 31, 2005, there are 2,872 county-level divisions, including 862 districts, 374 cities, 1,464 counties, 117 autonomous counties, 49 banners, 3 autonomous banners, 2 special districts and 1 forestry district in mainland China (the Republic of China governs 23 county-level divisions, including 18 counties and 5 provincial municipalities). Counties are the most common county-level division. Counties have continuously existed since the Warring States Period, much earlier than any other level of government in China. In Sinologist literature, xian are often translated as "districts" or "prefectures". Autonomous counties are counties with one or more designated ethnic minorities. These are analogous to autonomous regions (at the province-level) and autonomous prefectures (at the prefecture-level). Inner Mongolia has banners and autonomous banners, which are the same as counties and autonomous counties except in name. The name is a holdover from earlier forms of administration in Mongolia. County-level cities are, like prefecture-level cities, not "cities" in the traditional sense of the word, since they're actually large administrative regions that cover both urban and rural areas. It was popular for counties to become county-level cities in the 1990s, though this has since been halted. Districts are another type of county-level division. These were formerly the subdivisions of urban areas, consisting of built-up areas only. In recent years, however, many counties have been converted into districts, so that today districts are often just like counties, with towns, villages, and farmland.
There are also a few special county-level divisions. There is a county-level forestry district in Hubei province, Shennongjia, that's a county-level division; so are two special districts in Guizhou province, Liuzhi and Wanshan.

Township level

As of December 31, 2005 there were 41,636 township-level divisions. These include 19,522 towns, 14,677 township, 1,092 ethnic townships, 181 sumu, 1 ethnic sumu, 6,152 subdistricts, and 11 district public offices.
In general, urban areas are divided into subdistricts, while rural areas are divided into towns, townships, and ethnic townships. Sumu and ethnic sumu are the same as townships and ethnic townships, but are unique to Inner Mongolia. District public offices are a vestigial level of government. These once represented an extra level of government between the county- and township-levels. Today there are very few of these remaining and they're gradually being phased out.

Village level

The village level serves as an organizational division (census, mail system) and doesn't have much importance in political representative power. Basic local divisions like neighborhoods and communities are not informal like in the West, but have defined boundaries and designated heads (one per area):
In urban areas, every subdistrict of a district of a city administers many communities or neighborhoods. Each of them have a neighborhood committee to administer the dwellers of that neighborhood or community. Rural areas are organized into village committees or villager groups. A "village" in this case can either be a natural village, one that spontaneously and naturally exists, or an administrative village, which is a bureaucratic entity.

Special cases

Although every single administrative division has a clearly defined level associated with it, sometimes an entity may be given more autonomy than its level allows for.
   For example, a few of the largest prefecture-level cities are given more autonomy. These are known as sub-provincial cities, meaning that they're given a level of power higher than a prefecture, but still lower than a province. Such cities are half a level higher than what they'd normally be. Although these cities still belong to provinces, their special status gives them a high degree of autonomy within their respective provinces.
   A similar case exists with some county-level cities. Some county-level cities are given more autonomy. These cities are known as sub-prefecture-level cities, meaning that they're given a level of power higher than a county, but still lower than a prefecture. Such cities are also half a level higher than what they'd normally be. Sub-prefecture-level cities are often not put into any prefecture (for example they're directly administered by their province).
   A concrete example is the Pudong District of Shanghai. Although its status as a district of a direct-controlled municipality would define it as prefecture-level, the district head of Pudong is given sub-provincial powers. In other words, it's half a level higher than what it would normally be.

Ambiguity of the word "city" in China

Due to the complexity of the political divisions, the Chinese word "市"(shì) or in English "city", have many different meanings.
By its political level, when a "city" is referred, it can be a:

LV 1: � * Municipality of China, for example, Beijing

LV 2: � * Sub-provincial city, for example, Shenyang

* Prefecture-level city, for example, Baoding

LV 3: � * Sub-prefecture-level city, for example, Jiyuan

* County-level city, for example, Yiwu When used in the statistical data, the word "city" may have three different meanings:

The area administrated by the city. For the municipality, the sub-provincial city, or the prefecture-level city, a "city" in this sense includes all of the counties, county-level cities, city districts that the city governed. For the Sub-prefecture-level city or the County-level city, it includes all of the subdistricts, towns and townships that it has.

The area comprised by its the urban city districts and suburb city districts. The difference between the urban district and the suburb districts is that an urban district is only comprised by the subdistricts, while a suburb district also have towns and townships to govern rural areas. In some sense, this definition is approximately the metropolitan area. This definition isn't applied to the sub-prefecture-level city and the county-level city since they don't have city districts under them.

The urban area. Sometimes the urban area is referred as (市区 shìqū). For the municipality, the sub-provincial city, and the prefecture-level city, it's comprised by the urban city district and the adjacent subdistricts of the suburb city districts. For the sub-prefecture-level city and the county-level city, only central subdistricts are included. This definition is close to the strict meaning of "city" in western countries. It is important to specify the definition of "city" when referring to statistical data of Chinese cities. Otherwise, confusions may arise. For example, Shanghai is the largest city in China by the population in the urban area, but it's a smaller city than Chongqing by the population within the administration area.

History

Before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, China was ruled by a network of kings, nobles, and tribes. The rivalry of these groups culminated in the Warring States Period, and the state of Qin eventually emerged dominant.
   The Qin Dynasty was determined not to allow China to fall back into disunity, and therefore designed the first hierarchical administrative divisions in China, based on two levels: jùn commanderies and xiàn counties. The Han Dynasty that came immediately after added zhōu (usually translated as "provinces") as a third level on top, forming a three-tier structure.
   The Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty abolished commanderies, and added circuits (dào, later lù under the Song) on top, maintaining a three-tier system that lasted through the Song Dynasty. (As a second-level division, zhou are translated as "prefectures".) The Mongol-established Yuan Dynasty introduced the modern precursors to provinces, bringing the number of levels to four. This system was then kept more or less intact until the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty to rule China.
   The Republic of China streamlined the levels to just provinces and counties, and made the first attempt to extend political administration beyond the county level by establishing townships below counties. This was also the system officially adopted by the People's Republic of China in 1949, which defined the administrative divisions of China as three levels: provinces, counties, and townships.
   In practice, however, more levels were inserted. Greater administrative areas were inserted on top of provinces, but they were soon abolished, in 1954. Prefectures were inserted between provinces and counties; they continue be ubiquitously applied to nearly all areas of China. District public offices were inserted between counties and townships; once ubiquitous as well, they're currently being abolished, and very few remain.
   The most recent developments major developments have been the establishment of Chongqing as a municipality and the creation of Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions.

Reform

In recent years there have been calls to reform the administrative divisions and levels of China. Rumours of an impending major reform have also spread through various online bulletin boards.
The abolition of district public offices is an ongoing reform to remove an extra level of administration from between the county and township levels. There have also been calls to abolish the prefecture level, and some provinces have transferred some of the power prefectures currently hold to the counties they govern. There are also calls to reduce the size of the provinces. The ultimate goal is to reduce the different administration levels from five to three, (Provincial, County, Village) reducing the amount of corruption as well as the number of government workers to lower the budget.

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