Government immediate city
The cities of China directly under the government ( Chinese 直轄市 / 直辖市 , Pinyin zhíxiá shì ) are administrative units at the provincial level.
status
They are not provinces, but have the same rank as provinces and autonomous regions and are directly subordinate to the central government of the People's Republic of China .
Since China is a unitary state , the provinces are not member states (such as the German or Austrian states) and the cities directly under the government are not city-states (such as Berlin , Hamburg or Bremen ).
list
There are currently four cities under government. These are:
- Beijing , the capital of China;
- Tianjin , a port city 120 km southeast of Beijing;
- Chongqing , by far the largest in terms of area - and therefore also the largest in terms of population - of the four cities whose administrative area used to form the eastern seventh of Sichuan Province ;
- Shanghai , the economic and financial metropolis at the mouth of the Yangtze River .