County-level city
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Political divisions of China
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!style="background:#ffdead; font-size:90%; border-bottom:1px solid"|Province level
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|align=center|Provinces
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|align=center|Autonomous regions
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|align=center|Municipalities
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|align=center|Special Administrative Regions
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!style="background:#ffdead; font-size:90%; border-bottom:1px solid; border-top:1px solid"|Prefecture level
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|align=center|Prefectures
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|align=center|Autonomous prefectures
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|align=center|Prefecture-level cities
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|align=center|(incl. Sub-provincial cities)
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|align=center|Leagues
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!style="background:#ffdead; font-size:90%; border-bottom:1px solid; border-top:1px solid"|County level
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|align=center|Districts
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|align=center|Counties
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|align=center|Autonomous counties
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|align=center|County-level cities
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|align=center|(incl. Sub-prefecture-level cities)
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|align=center|Banners
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|align=center|Autonomous banners
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!style="background:#ffdead; font-size:90%; border-bottom:1px solid; border-top:1px solid"|Township level
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|align=center|District public offices
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|align=center|Townships
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|align=center|Ethnic townships
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|align=center|Towns
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|align=center|Subdistricts
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|align=center|Sumu
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|align=center|Ethnic sumu
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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 (副地级市), or vice-prefecture-level city, are county-level cities with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include Jiyuan (Henan province), Xiantao (Hubei), and Golmud (Qinghai).
See also
