Urbanization in China
buildup of cities in China
Urbanization in the People's Republic of China increased in speed following the initiation of the reform and opening up policy. According to the Chinese government, the country's urbanization rate was 67 percent at end of 2024. According to the United Nations, the country's urbanization rate was 83.7 percent in 2025, having peaked in absolute numbers in 2021.
History
Before industrialization
China's rapid urbanization can be largely attributed to increases in food supply beginning 20th century. Starting at the end of the Qing period, China began importing moderate quantities of foodstuffs from the outside world to help feed its population. Along with improvements in agricultural productivity, labor demand in the countryside dropped dramatically.
By the same token, urbanization rarely exceeded ten percent of the total population although large urban centres were established. For example, during the Song, the northern capital Kaifeng (of the Northern Song) and southern capital Hangzhou (of the Southern Song) had 1.4 million and one million inhabitants, respectively. In addition, it was common that urban residents also had one foot in the rural sector due to private landholding property rights.
People's Republic of China
Since 1953, the government of the People's Republic of China has changed its official criteria of urbanization at least six times.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Urbanization in China” is buildup of cities in China. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Urbanization, China and buildup, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7900233. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2025, 2021 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Urbanization in China” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.