County-level city
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| This article is part of the series: Political divisions of China |
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| Province level |
| Provinces |
| Autonomous regions |
| Municipalities |
| Special Administrative Regions |
| Prefecture level |
| Prefectures |
| Autonomous prefectures |
| Prefecture-level cities |
| (incl. Sub-provincial cities) |
| Leagues |
| County level |
| Counties |
| Autonomous counties |
| County-level cities |
| (incl. Sub-prefecture-level cities) |
| Districts |
| Banners |
| Autonomous banners |
| Township level |
| Townships |
| Ethnic townships |
| Towns |
| Subdistricts |
| Sumu |
| Ethnic sumu |
| District public offices |
A county-level city (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.
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).