Every 1M+ Chinese City #7

Name

Simplified Chinese: 常德

Traditional Chinese: 常德

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: cháng dé

Cantonese jyutping: soeng4 dak1

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,170,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,469,055

Changde was the site of the bloody Battle of Changde in WW2, where the Japanese used chemical weapons to clear their way.

Nowadays, tobacco is its most important industry, accounting for half of its industrial outputs. Other than that, it is not a well known city outside Hunan.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 岳阳

Traditional Chinese: 岳陽

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: yuè yáng

Cantonese jyutping: ngok6 joeng4

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,170,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,335,692

Yueyang is mostly known for its landmark the Yueyang Tower, overlooking the Dongting Lake. It was originally built in the 3rd century, and made famous by many poems and essays which are studied in secondary school.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 九江

Traditional Chinese: 九江

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: jiŭ jiāng

Cantonese jyutping: gau2 gong1

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,020,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,164,268

Jiujiang is on the southern bank of Yangtze River downstream from Wuhan. It is next to Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China.

There was a British concession after the Second Opium War. It was returned to China in 1929 after riots broke out two years earlier and the British lost control over their possession.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 长沙

Traditional Chinese: 長沙

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: cháng shā

Cantonese jyutping: coeng4 saa1

Population

citypopulation.de: 10,500,000

census 2020 (metro): 5,090,493

Changsha is the capital and the largest city of Hunan. Although it has over 2000 years of history, the city was completely destroyed when the Nationalist army set fire on the city to stop the advancing Japanese troops in 1938.

Today, Changsha is a modern industrial city, known as the "construction machinery capital of the world". It has a maglev train line built domestically using indigenous technology. The Hunan Satellite TV is one of the most popular TV stations in China, making Changsha an influential city in the Chinese mass media landscape.

Note that the citypopulation figure now includes the adjacent twin cities of Xiangtan (湘潭, pop. 1,099,892) and Zhuzhou (株洲, pop. 1,473,667), both were listed separately in previous years. Together, the three cities now form the Changzhutan metropolis with over 10 million inhabitants.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 南昌

Traditional Chinese: 南昌

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: nán chāng

Cantonese jyutping: naam4 coeng1

Population

citypopulation.de: 4,800,000

census 2020 (metro): 3,929,660

Nanchang is the capital of Jiangxi and the birthplace of the People's Liberation Army, which was born out of the 1927 Nanchang Uprising. It was the first engagement between the Communists and the Nationalists.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 邵阳

Traditional Chinese: 邵陽

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: shào yáng

Cantonese jyutping: siu6 joeng4

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,030,000

census 2020 (metro): 802,230

Shaoyang is a small and poor city in Hunan that most people have not heard of.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 衡阳

Traditional Chinese: 衡陽

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: héng yáng

Cantonese jyutping: hang4 joeng4

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,220,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,290,715

Hengyang is the second largest city in Hunan. It lies on the key route between Guangzhou and Beijing. It is named after Mount Heng, the southern mountain of the Five Great Mountains of China (similar to Tai'an and Mount Tai).

Name

Simplified Chinese: 赣州

Traditional Chinese: 贛州

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: gàn zhōu

Cantonese jyutping: gam3 zau1

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,980,000

census 2020 (metro): 2,588,060

Ganzhou in southern Jiangxi is the home of the Hakka people and culture. It gives the short name Gan to the province. It is known as the "orange capital of the world", producing over a million tonne of navel oranges each year.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 汕头

Traditional Chinese: 汕頭

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: shàn tóu

Cantonese jyutping: saan3 tau4

Population

citypopulation.de: 8,000,000

census 2020 (metro): 5,437,602

Shantou (or Swatow) is the largest city in eastern Guangdong. The area, including neighbouring Chaozhou (潮州, pop. 1,750,945), Jieyang (揭阳 / 揭陽, pop. 1,863,587) and Puning (普宁 / 普寧, pop. 1,998,619), forms one of the largest urban areas in China commonly known as Chaozhou (Teochew) or Chaoshan (Teo-Swa).

The locals speak a dialect of Southern Min which is unintelligible to the Cantonese in the west. Teochew people are prominent diaspora in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Hong Kong, came from here.

Shantou was one of the treaty ports after the Second Opium War, and one of the original Special Economic Zones established in the 1980s along with the more successful Shenzhen, Xiamen and Zhuhai.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 香港

Traditional Chinese: 香港

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: xiāng gǎng

Cantonese jyutping: hoeng1 gong2

Population

citypopulation.de: 7,300,000

census 2020 (metro): 7,474,200

I have written many blogs about Hong Kong so I won't repeat myself here. This is the only top 100 city in the world that suffered significant population loss over the past two years, the reason which I explained before.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 珠海

Traditional Chinese: 珠海

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: zhū hăi

Cantonese jyutping: zyu1 hoi2

Population

citypopulation.de: 2,450,000

census 2020 (metro): 2,439,585

Zhuhai (literally means "pearl sea") is right across the border from Macau. It is less busy than its neighbours, and is popular with local tourists and retirees.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 广州

Traditional Chinese: 廣州

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: guăng zhōu

Cantonese jyutping: gwong2 zau1

Population

citypopulation.de: 67,800,000

census 2020 (metro): 18,676,605

Guangzhou is a Tier-1 Cities in China (known as "Bei-Shang-Guang-Shen"). It is the central city of the Greater Bay Area, which I already explained in my previous blog so I won't bore you again. In addition to Shenzhen (深圳, pop. 17,560,061), Dongguan (东莞 / 東莞, pop. 10,466,625), Foshan (佛山, pop. 9,498,863), Jiangmen (江門 / 江门, pop. 2,126,978) and Zhongshan (中山, pop. 4,418,060), citypopulation has added Huizhou (惠州, pop. 3,494,715) to it, and the population is now 68 million compared to 48 million two years ago (more than the UK).

Name

Simplified Chinese: 清远

Traditional Chinese: 清遠

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: qīng yuăn

Cantonese jyutping: cing1 jyun5

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,270,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,738,424

Qingyuan is only 65 km north of Guangzhou or 40 km from its airport. It is more like an outlying suburb of Guangzhou these days. Why it is not included as part of Guangzhou by citypopulation is baffling.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 肇庆

Traditional Chinese: 肇慶

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: zhào qìng

Cantonese jyutping: siu6 hing3

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,100,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,553,109

Zhaoqing, which is 80 km west of Guangzhou, is the poorer cousin within the Greater Bay Area. The Seven Star Crags and lake are popular with tourists. Otherwise it is known for its giant sticky rice dumplings.

Again, I will not be surprised if this is added to Guangzhou in the future citypopulation listing.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 茂名

Traditional Chinese: 茂名

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: mào míng

Cantonese jyutping: mau6 ming4

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,380,000

census 2020 (metro): 2,539,148

Maoming is a small city with the largest petrochemical plant in Southern China. Many of its working class population left the city to work in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is not a well known city outside Guangdong.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 湛江

Traditional Chinese: 湛江

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: zhàn jiāng

Cantonese jyutping: zaam3 gong1

Population

citypopulation.de: 1,790,000

census 2020 (metro): 1,931,455

Zhanjiang, a port city at the northeast of Leizhou Peninsula, was leased to France as the territory of Kouang-Tchéou-Wan between 1898 and 1945. It used to be the second largest city in Guangdong, but its economy now lags behind the rest of the province.

Name

Simplified Chinese: 海口

Traditional Chinese: 海口

Pronunciation

Mandarin pinyin: hăi kŏu

Cantonese jyutping: hoi2 hau2

Population

citypopulation.de: 2,575,000

census 2020 (metro): 2,873,358

Haikou is the capital and the largest city on the Hainan Island, which was split from Guangdong as a standalone province in 1988. With a tropical climate, it produces coconuts, coffee and rubber.