prefecture-level city

prefecture-level citynoun

• 1

  An administrative division of China immediately below the province level and above the county level, often comprising a central urban area, a large surrounding rural area, and smaller towns and cities. (Most of China proper today is part of a prefecture-level city.)

  • The majority of migrants in Zhejiangcun came from two areas under the jurisdiction of a prefecture-level city, Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province: Yueqing, a county-level city, and Yongjia, a rural county.
  • (3) Prefecture-level Cities A prefecture-level city is a large or medium-sized city, smaller than an MDUCG and sub-provincial city. It generally has an urban, non-agricultural population of over 250,000, which includes over 200,000 in the seat of the city government; a total industrial output value of over 2 billion yuan; developed tertiary industry with an output value exceeding that of primary industry and accounting for over 35 percent of the GDP; over 200 million yuan of budgetary revenue at the local level; and has become a central city among several cities and counties. By the end of 1997, there were 222 prefecture-level cities around China. [...]In fact, a prefecture-level city has become a local administrative unit with the characteristics of both ordinary local administrative divisions and local city divisions.