Skip to content 
○ Recently, the internationally renowned publishing organization Springer Nature released the “Nature” supplement – “Nature Index – Research Cities 2024”. Five Chinese cities ranked among the top ten in the world, and Nanjing ranked fifth in the world.
○ After this fall, it seems that we have entered the harvest season of city rankings. Also in November, the highly anticipated new GaWC global city rankings were released. The GaWC rankings of Chinese cities rose significantly, with Nanjing ranking 75th and entering the global BETA (second-tier) cities.
○ International consulting firm Kearney also released the 2024 Global City Index Ranking Report. In this report, Nanjing’s ranking moved up ten places from the previous year, ranking 83rd in the world.
○ Cities are the main battlefield for China’s modernization. The rankings on the lists reveal the development and trends of cities. Through the lists and the cities “making the list”, the direction of the cities’ progress is clearly visible.01Chinese cities on the global rankings
○ There are more and more Chinese cities in the global city list, and their rankings are getting higher and higher.
○ Yan Yan, deputy director of the Shanghai branch of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, has long been concerned about the development of urban planning. According to the different focuses of the evaluation system, he divided the city list into three categories.
○ The first category focuses on the performance of a city in a single field, and deeply explores the advantages and characteristics of the city in key dimensions such as scientific research and innovation, production services, livable life, and commercial appeal.
○ The Nature Index global science city ranking released by Springer Nature Publishing Group emphasizes the scientific research level of the city. The Nature Index tracks the contribution of scientific research papers in more than 100 high-quality journals. Nanjing ranks third in the world in both physics and chemistry. This year, Nanjing’s global ranking has moved up one place compared to the previous year.
○ The World Cities List released by the UK Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network calculates the network connectivity of each city based on the distribution of headquarters and branches of high-end productive service industries such as accounting, advertising, finance, law, and management consulting. This list emphasizes the modernization and globalization level of urban productive service industries.
○ The ranking of Asian livable cities released by the United Nations Human Settlements Program is based on the dimension of livability. The top 50 Asian cities are selected based on four dimensions: comprehensive climate comfort throughout the year, superior education and medical conditions, relatively developed economy, and relatively balanced prices and incomes. In the 2024-2025 list, Nanjing ranks 14th in Asia, second only to Guangzhou and Wuhan among mainland cities.
○ The second category of lists focuses on the current comprehensive strength of cities, comprehensively assessing the current development level of cities in terms of economy, society, environment, etc., represented by the Global Cities Index (GCI) released by the American consulting company Kearney in conjunction with top international scholars and think tanks. Cities are ranked comprehensively based on 31 indicators in five dimensions: business activities, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political affairs. Nanjing is located after Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Chengdu. It has made the greatest progress among the top 100 Chinese cities and has set a record high ranking.
○ The world’s top 500 cities and China’s top 100 cities released by GYBrand, a domestic brand valuation and growth consulting company, also belong to this type. Comprehensive analysis of multi-dimensional indicators such as economic strength, infrastructure, business environment, quality construction, living life, international reputation, and development potential reflects the quality of urban development. In 2024, Nanjing ranked 72nd in the world, up 23 places from the previous year.
○ The third category of lists focuses on the city’s future development potential, focusing on the city’s resource richness in hardware construction, talent reserves, cultural charm, ecological harmony, etc., represented by the City of Opportunity jointly released by the China Development Research Foundation and PwC. Chinese cities are observed based on 10 dimensions and 50 variables, including intellectual capital, technology and innovation, regional important cities, urban resilience, transportation and urban planning, sustainable development, culture and life, economic influence, cost, and business-friendly environment. In 2024, Nanjing ranked sixth among mainland cities, with intellectual capital, transportation and urban planning, and culture and life entering the top five.
○ Overall, Nanjing has performed well in the above lists in recent years. Its comprehensive strength and future development potential are outstanding, closely following the four first-tier cities and on par with Hangzhou and Chengdu. In individual fields, its scientific research and innovation and livable living conditions are outstanding, and its production services and commercial charm are stable in the second echelon in China. It is deeply integrated into the integrated development pattern of the Yangtze River Delta, and together with other regional central cities, it has achieved continuous improvement in international rankings.
02A new window for observing the quality of urban economic development
○ The city list attempts to reveal the driving force of urban development and reflects the vision of different institutions for urban development. In the past two years, the “National Big City Strong City Index Report” (hereinafter referred to as the “Big City Strong City Index”) released by domestic institutions has attracted the attention of the media. The “Big City Strong City Index” was first released in 2022, and this year is the second time it has been released.
○ This year’s “Big City Strong City Index” was jointly released by the Shenzhen Industry Research Institute of Shanghai Jiaotong University and the China Development Institute. According to reports, the big cities and strong cities included in the ranking are cities with a total GDP of more than 500 billion yuan in the year, and there will be 59 cities in 2023. The calculation method of China’s Big City Strong City Index is to add up the rankings of the 59 cities in each indicator to get the index value, and the index values are ranked from low to high.
○ Chen Xian, professor at Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and researcher at Shenzhen Industry Research Institute, introduced that the China Big City Index is a supplement and improvement to the city GDP rankings, just as the United Nations Human Development Index is a supplement and improvement to the GDP rankings of various countries. The value of this index is that while people generally pay attention to the total economic volume of cities, it focuses on the efficiency, strength and potential of urban economies, as well as people’s livelihood, and provides a new window for observing the quality of urban economic development.
○ Chen Xian introduced the first five indicators of the index system, which reflect the contributions of labor, land, capital, technology and human capital respectively, and are commonly used indicators. The denominator of land productivity is the built-up area, and the numerator is the sum of the added value of the secondary and tertiary industries. Unfortunately, the university education population is a census data, and it is impossible to obtain the university education population of each city in each year, so the talent ratio can only be calculated using the seventh census data.
○ In addition, entrepreneurial talent is recognized as an important production factor. How to examine the contribution of this factor to the urban economy? The “Big City Strong City Index” uses the “number of enterprises with a market value (sales revenue) of 10 billion yuan or more” as a result of reflecting the empowerment of entrepreneurs and management factors in the urban economy.
○ In the design of indicators reflecting the urban people’s livelihood, environmental quality and public services, “per capita disposable income” is used instead of “per capita GDP” to more directly reflect the urban people’s livelihood; the “ratio of days with good ambient air quality” is used to reflect the urban environmental quality; and “per capita general public budget expenditure” is used to reflect the level of urban public services.
○ In the “Big City Strong City Index” report released this year, Nanjing’s comprehensive ranking is sixth in the country. The best ranking of the ten indicators is the talent ratio, ranking second among the 59 cities; followed by the number of invention patents authorized per 10,000 people, ranking third; and labor productivity, ranking fourth.
○ Chen Xian believes that maintaining sustainable economic growth and development ultimately depends on scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, and Shenzhen is a good example. Maintaining growth rate and innovation-driven are in the same direction.
