Direct-controlled municipalities of China

The administered municipalities in China (Chinese直辖市/直辖市, Pinyin Zhixia shì ) are administrative units at the provincial level. It is with them not to provinces, but they have the same rank as provinces and autonomous regions and report directly to the central government of the People's Republic of China.

Since China is a unitary state, it is in the provinces not to member states (such as the German or Austrian lands ) and the centrally-administered cities not city-states (such as Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen).

Currently, there are four direct-controlled cities. These are:

• Beijing, the capital of China;
• Tianjin, 120 km southeast of Beijing located port city;
• Shanghai, the economic and financial capital at the mouth of the Yangtze River;
• Chongqing, the area lags far behind - and in the entire area also terms of population - the largest of the four cities whose administrative area used to be the seventh of eastern Sichuan province was formed.