Counties of the People's Republic of China

Circles (Chinese县/县, Pinyin Xiàn ) are in the Chinese -speaking world, a form of administrative management at a lower level, the county level. Comparable to a county or county other states. Currently, there are 1452 counties (as of February 9, 2013 ) in the People's Republic of China. In the province of Taiwan or Republic of China, there are 14 counties and five urban districts and county-level cities. Main locations and thus seat of the district administrations are usually large municipalities (in rare cases municipalities) that have often been strong urban character.

Background

The number of counties on the mainland of the People's Republic of China should shrink in the future, because every now and then circles are converted to county-level cities or districts. Circles are, as a rule, the district level. In the centrally-administered cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing as well as in the province of Hainan, they are subject, however, directly to the provincial level, which has renounced here to install a district level at all or extend the district level to circles (Hainan ).

Criterion for the conversion of circles in county-level cities or districts in the first case, the degree of urbanization in combination with a certain distance from the center of a prefecture-level city, in the second case, the actual or expected development of a merger of the urban center of the resolved circle with the / the central city district / s of a prefecture-level city.