List of top Chinese cities by GDP per capita

As one of the types of administrative divisions in China, cities ‌include‌ three categories: municipalities, prefecture-level cities, and county-level cities. In addition, China's two special administrative regions are highly urbanized and commercialized, and are also one of the most densely populated areas in the world. While commonly recognized as major global cities in general discourse, ‌as provincial-level administrative divisions under Constitution of China, they are not classified within the city hierarchy of ordinary administrative divisions‌. In terms of area, some prefecture-level cities and municipalities are comparable in scope, and a portion of them have similar population and economic sizes falling within the same general order of magnitude. The most significant administrative division difference between municipalities and prefecture-level cities is that municipalities have no subordinate county-level cities. Mostly, ‌county-level cities in China‌ have been established through the overall conversion of existing counties, but their development focus, policies authorized by the central and provincial governments, and approved development plans are different from ‌those‌ of ordinary counties. Based on this, this entry includes China's prefecture-level cities, municipalities and special administrative regions. ‌Leagues and prefectures at the prefecture-level with prominent economic characteristics are also appropriately included‌. Unless unique resource development drives GDP growth, leading to a sharp increase in ‌per capita GDP‌ and attracting widespread attention, such administrative regions are only included as case studies due to their limited advantages in overall population size and economic development level. If you want to fully understand the ‌economic‌ level of prefecture-level administrative regions, please refer to the list of prefecture-level divisions of China by GDP.

The GDP indicators included in this entry are all based on nominal GDP at current prices. The converted US dollar GDP data is calculated based on the annual average exchange rate announced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of the Chinese government for that year. The IMF publishes the purchasing power parity (PPP) index for various currencies, calculated based on the average purchasing power of the US dollar in the United States and the average purchasing power of each currency in its local economy, and the standard unit of virtual currency under the purchasing power parity framework is the international dollar. This index is adjusted twice a year, and the data varies significantly between adjustments. For this reason, purchasing power parity-adjusted GDP figures are no longer included in this entry.