Chinese County Level City Definition

A county-level city 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. 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 "urban area," is often used.

County level cities 2,858. Counties 1,464, Districts 855, County-level cities 367, Autonomous counties 117, Banners 49, Autonomous banners 3, Special districts 3. Forestry areas 1.

In the main urban area of Daye, a county-level city within the prefecture-level city of Huangshi, Hubei. Daye also includes some separate towns, such as Dajipu.