2017 Top 50 Chinese Cities’ GDP nominal per capita Raw Data Compiling

Raw data here. I thought it’d be interesting to compile a list and do some analysis just to prove how rich Chinese is becoming.

Before the raw data, here are some major conclusions drawn from this 2017 data. Among the top 50 richest cities in China:

  1. 463 million people (30% of total Population of China) lives in these top 50 richest cities, with a whopping 4329 billion USD GDP in total, 15835 USD per capita (comparable to that of Lithuania of 2017: 16443 USD)
  2. Southern China is genuinely richer than Northern China, though not much in terms of population at the moment
  3. One city (Erdos) above Estimated 2017 Average EU GDP nominal per capita 36700 USD
  4. 10 cities above Estimated 2017 GPD nominal per capita of Portugal (Lowest among Western Europe) 20575 USD
  5.  49 cities above Estimated 2017 nominal GDP per capita of Bulgaria (Lowest among EU) 7924 USD
  6.  42 cities above Estimated 2017 nominal GDP per capita of World Average 10038 USD

One exception from this chart is that Erdos, being the richest city in China, isn’t actually quite the same picture in reality. Its GDP is mainly boosted by hard-core mining that is usually not happening in any city’s economic profile. So take it out as you might.

P.S. I have always argued that my city Changsha is pretty rich in spite of constant protest from my friends. It turns out that it is actually richer than Beijing and Shanghai. And we pretty much beat Portugal last year. It is projected that we could take out Spain this year if we are lucky. No?

 

By Region Cities on list By Province Cities on list
North total 21 Guangdong 4
North 13 Shandong 8
Northeast 4 Inner Mongolia 1
Northwest 1 Jiangsu 9
Northcentral 3 Hunan 1
South total 29 Hubei 1
South 8 Hebei 2
Southeast 14 Shaanxi 1
Southwest 3 Sichuan 1
Southcentral 4 Fujian 3
Zhejiang 5
Jiangxi 1
Guangxi 1
Yunnan 1
Liaoning 2
Jilin 1
Heilongjiang 1
Henan 2
Anhui 1

1 USD = 6.3 CNY

City Province which it belongs to Region Population million GDP nominal 2017 Billion Yuan GDP nominal 2017 billion USD GDP per capita (USD)
Erdos Inner Mongolia North 2.01 471.6 74.62 37125
Shenzhen Guangdong South 10.9 2228.6 352.63 32351
Dongying Shandong North 2.09 419.8 66.42 31782
Wuxi Jiangsu Southeast 6.53 1051.1 166.31 25469
Suzhou Jiangsu Southeast 10.65 1700 268.99 25257
Guangzhou Guangdong South 14.04 2150 340.19 24230
Nanjing Jiangsu Southeast 8.27 1171.5 185.36 22414
Changzhou Jiangsu Southeast 4.71 662 104.75 22239
Hangzhou Zhejiang Southeast 9.19 1255.6 198.67 21618
Changsha Hunan Southcentral 7.65 1020 161.39 21097
Qingdao Shandong North 8.71 1125.8 178.13 20452
Beijing – North 21.71 2800 443.04 20407
Ningbo Zhejiang Southeast 7.88 985 155.85 19778
Shanghai – Southeast 24.18 3013.3 476.79 19718
Wuhan Hubei Southcentral 10.77 1340 212.03 19687
Tianjin – North 15.47 1859.5 294.22 19019
Foshan Guangdong South 8.46 950 150.32 17768
Yantai Shandong North 7.01 755 119.46 17042
Xiamen Fujian South 4 430 68.04 17009
Nantong Jiangsu Southeast 7.3 775 122.63 16798
Shaoxing Zhejiang Southeast 5.01 531.1 84.03 16773
Zibo Shandong North 4.64 488.6 77.31 16662
Dalian Liaoning Northeast 7 736.3 116.50 16643
Jinan Shandong North 7.06 728.5 115.27 16327
Yangzhou Jiangsu Southeast 5 506.4 80.13 16025
Fuzhou Fujian South 7.57 712.8 112.78 14899
Taizhou Jiangsu Southeast 5.08 474.4 75.06 14776
Nanchang Jiangxi Southcentral 5.37 500 79.11 14733
Dongguan Guangdong South 8.32 758 119.94 14415
Zhengzhou Henan Northcentral 10.01 900.3 142.45 14231
Quanzhou Fujian South 8.51 753.3 119.19 14006
Chengdu Sichuan Southwest 15.92 1389 219.78 13805
Hefei Anhui Southcentral 9.37 719.1 113.78 12143
Xian Shaanxi Northwest 9.45 720.6 114.02 12066
Xuzhou Jiangsu North 8.71 660 104.43 11990
Changchun Jilin Northeast 8.8 661.3 104.64 11890
Taizhou Zhejiang Southeast 6.03 438.8 69.43 11514
Shenyang Liaoning Northeast 8.29 587 92.88 11204
Yancheng Jiangsu Southeast 7.24 505 79.91 11037
Tangshan Hebei North 10.24 701.2 110.95 10835
Weifang Shandong North 9.27 632.5 100.08 10796
Kunming Yunnan Southwest 7.26 485.6 76.84 10583
Luoyang Henan Northcentral 6.8 434.3 68.72 10106
Harbin Heilongjiang Northeast 10.63 660.9 104.57 9838
Shijiangzhuang Hebei Northcentral 10.78 655.8 103.77 9626
Wenzhou Zhejiang Southeast 9.19 548.5 86.79 9444
Chongqing – Southwest 33.72 1953 309.02 9164
Jining Shandong North 8.08 462 73.10 9047
Nanning Guangxi South 7.52 418 66.14 8795
Linxi Shandong North 10.44 434.5 68.75 6585

4 comments

  2. Thank you for the interesting information.

    I wanted to ask you about your opinion about modern Chinese GDP.
    Thing is that its official per capita numbers (booth PPP and nominal) are below the likes of Mexico and similar to Brazil, while China is clearly distinct from them on many categories, like scientific output, levels of education and consumption, tourist spending and availability of modern electronics. Now some economists are claiming, that Chinas GDP is overstated by as much as 1/3, this seems very strange, since even accounting for a poor countryside, any visit to a Chinese city makes one doubt, that China is poorer then Egypt. Not to mention that Chinese urban salaries are now bigger then Russia’s.

    There are also claims, that Chinas GDP is underreported, especialy in the service sector. Which the CCP counts differently, then western countries do. http://www.ireconomy.ir/images/page/Editor/files/150824_Rosen_BrokenAbacus_WEB.pdf is an example.

    I also don’t know if the CCP actually wants to present a high GDP to the world. It certainly wants to show high growth rates though, to get people to invest. But the information I heard on this topic was very contradictory.

    I would be grateful to hear your opinion.

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply

    1. There are underreported and overreported cases. In general the provincial government tended to bloat about their economic achievement to Beijing every now and then (as in the case of Tianjian for instance last year, which was severely punished by the central govt); whereas central government wants to downplay the GDP factor so as to maintain a low profile as “developing country” for international diplomacy. Many Chinese cities are as rich as developed countries as shown in those raw data of GDP per capita. Meanwhile, Chinese average salaries are much higher now than one can imagine in the west. Average salary in city like Beijing and Shanghai can go up to around 1500 USD per month. That is even higher than the national average of Spain. But of course there is the other side of the story, as there are still Chinese population not up to that standard, and there are many 2nd tier or 3rd tier cities that are well below national average.

      Reply

      1. Thank you very much for the answer.

        I do wonder, if Chinese government propaganda is more interested in making Chinas economy look more or less powerful and threatening to the west.

        All the people, who speak about Chinas collapse next year (or even next month), do after all decrease the chance, that the US government percieves China as a threat and goes hostile towards it.

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