The “2021 Top 100 Cities in China” list has been revealed and Nanjing comes in at a fairly impressive Number 6. And mainly, it’s down to the city’s recent performance in the fields of health, culture, education, environment and tech.
The report, compiled annually since 2015 by the Wharton Institute of Economics was released Saturday, 22 May, 2021. Seeking to snapshot urban centres in China and their development, the report looks to economic indicators, while all cities in China at prefecture level and above start by being shortlisted each year.
Each city’s comprehensive score is based on hard economic indicators such as GDP, savings and finance, and soft economic indicators that comprise environment, science and education, plus culture and health. Each score is composed of the city’s total score and per capita score.
Top of the list, needless to say are the big guns, while the complete top ten in the 2021 Top 100 Cities in China comprises, in descending order, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Wuxi.
Interestingly, Nanjing has beaten out Chengdu, a city much lauded for its quality of life and economic performance, and known as the shopping capital of China.
Likewise, Nanjing comes ahead of Suzhou, a city with a tremendous international footprint. And still with the top ten, given events of the past year, it’s nice to see Wuhan on the list.
Elsewhere, surprising is the placing of Tianjin at Number 13, one place behind Changsha, capital of Hunan. It’s something of a fall from grace for the second northern municipality, as previous similar reports have often ranked Tianjin ahead of Nanjing.
Further down the list we find China’s seaside destinations, which seem to offer little more than their beaches. Qingdao is at Number 18, odd for a place that often claims to be “China’s Happiest City”. Xiamen comes in at Number 24, while Sanya, described by many as the “Hawaii of China”, does not even make the list.
So what factors have contributed most to Nanjing being Number 6 in the 2021 Top 100 Cities in China Report?
Nanjing has made stellar progress in the past few years when it comes to air quality. Today, the city has the lowest average concentration of PM2.5 in all of Jiangsu province. In addition, 83.1 percent of days last year had air quality defined as either good or excellent, some 6.3 percentage points higher than the city’s annual target.
The standard of education is another important factor affecting cities’ rankings in the 2021 Top 100 Cities in China. Nanjing has long been an educational capital, in which students, as a proportion of the overall population, number first in China. Nanjing is also tops nationwide for the number of “double first class” universities.
In the field of science and technology, Nanjing looks to be known as a centre for innovation; indeed, the city is now recognised as the National Innovative City that ranks fourth in China. In addition, the number of high-tech enterprises calling Nanjing their home has increased 3.5 times in the last 3 years.
Culture has always been a key focus for Nanjing. In recent years, the city has added to her qualifications in the cultural sphere by being first in China to win recognition as both “City of Literature” and “International City of Peace”.
When it comes to health, another significant decider in the top 100, Nanjing again fares very well. In 2020, the first Urban Health Big Data Report ranked Nanjing third in the country.
The full top 100 of the 2021 Top 100 Cities in China can be seen on the PSA Nanjing (南京发布) official WeChat account. For those who are wondering, at Number 100 is Hengyang, the second largest city in Hunan Province after Changsha.
