Why Chinese Cities are Less Populated than You Think

Summary

Chinese cities may not be as densely populated as one might think due to how China defines its cities. The video explores how China's city population numbers can be misleading because what constitutes a "city" in China encompasses vast administrative areas that include rural and mountainous regions as well as urban centers. For example, Chongqing is technically a mega-city with 33 million people across an area the size of Austria, but its urban population is a fraction of that. This system contrasts with typical city definitions elsewhere, adding complexity to population comparisons with other countries.

Highlights

• Chongqing appears to be among the largest cities but includes vast non-urban areas. 🤯
• Many Chinese cities include entire rural regions, unlike most cities worldwide. 🚜
• Chongqing's urban population is actually much smaller than its reported 33 million. 👥
• The area of Chongqing is comparable to the size of Austria, blending urban and rural. 🇦🇹
• China's administrative city definition causes population figures to seem exaggerated. 📊

Key Takeaways

• Chinese cities look massive mainly due to the country's unique administrative definitions. 📏
• In China, cities can include huge rural areas, not just urban spaces. 🌄
• Chongqing is a prime example, appearing as a megacity but largely consisting of rural land. 🏙️
• Chinese city-population numbers can be misleading, as they are often more about area size than urban density. 🤔
• Comparing such expansive ‘cities’ to those in other countries requires understanding China's unique classification system. 🌐

Overview

The massive size of Chinese cities, like the fascinating case of Chongqing, is often attributed to China’s administrative approach rather than actual urban sprawl. This city, with its Blade Runner-esque appearance, highlights how Chinese cities often encompass expansive rural and urban landscapes.

Unlike the global norm of seeing cities as mainly urban-centric, China’s definition is broad, including vast swathes of countryside. For instance, Chongqing's reputed 33 million population mainly reflects its expansive area – comparable to the size of Austria – rather than dense urban living.

These distinctive classifications make Chinese cities difficult to compare with those elsewhere. While Shanghai is reasonably sized by world standards, many others, being direct municipalities or prefecture-level cities, include whole regions, not just bustling urban areas, thus inflating perceived population sizes.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction: China's Vastness and City Perceptions The chapter highlights China's immense size, both geographically and in terms of population, GDP, military, and land area. It emphasizes the vastness of Chinese cities, characterized by expansive urban landscapes filled with skyscrapers and massive populations. However, it suggests that there's more complexity to these cities than the usual massive scale and bustling imagery.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Population Paradox: Chongqing In this chapter, the focus is on the city of Chongqing in China, often depicted as a vast, sprawling metropolis akin to settings in science fiction films like Cyberpunk or Blade Runner. However, the perception of Chongqing and other Chinese cities might not match reality due to the way cities are defined in China, which can lead to misunderstandings about their actual population sizes.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Chongqing vs. Other Global Metropolises The chapter discusses the population size of Chongqing, a city with 32 million residents, and compares it to other major global metropolises such as Jakarta, Delhi, and Tokyo. It highlights the enormity of Chongqing and notes that there are significant differences when directly comparing Chongqing to these other large cities.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Geographical Layout: Urban vs. Rural The chapter compares the geographical layout of urban and rural areas, using the examples of Chongqing and Tokyo. Tokyo is described as being much more massive and densely populated, with many areas covered by buildings 10 stories or taller. In contrast, Chongqing, despite having parts that are sparsely populated and almost rural, is affected by mountains running through the city. This geographical feature influences its lower density compared to Tokyo.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Understanding Chongqing's Status Chongqing is often mentioned in comparisons to Tokyo due to its massive population of 33 million people, which is only slightly less than Tokyo's 37 million. This population figure is somewhat misleading, however, as the urban buildup in Chongqing isn't particularly extensive. The city's vastness is due to its status as one of the largest cities globally by area, a common trait among many Chinese cities. A look at Google Maps reveals Chongqing's enormous territory, covering an area of 32,000 square miles, comparable to some countries.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Visualizing Administrative Differences The chapter discusses the unique administrative status of Chongqing in China, which is one of the four directly administered municipalities, equivalent to provinces. Despite its large size, comparable to the country of Austria or the state of South Carolina, Chongqing is not entirely urban and includes rural, forested, and mountainous regions. The chapter highlights the distinction of Chongqing and similar municipalities, which include Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin, in China's administrative structure.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Chinese Cities' Population Deception The chapter discusses the administrative status of Chongqing, a city in China that is governed as a special municipality independent of any province. This change was implemented by the Chinese government in 1997 to stimulate growth in western China. Like Washington DC in the United States, Chongqing is not part of a state but exists as its own entity. However, unlike the small geographical size of Washington DC, Chongqing encompasses a vast area, yet is still classified as a single city.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Many Cities, Vast Areas The chapter titled 'Many Cities, Vast Areas' compares the size of various cities to give perspective on urban sprawl and city incorporation. It uses the example of Indianapolis and imagines what would happen if it incorporated the entire state of Indiana, including small towns and suburbs from nearby Illinois, illustrating the expansive nature of urban areas like Chongqing, which spans 32,000 square miles compared to Indianapolis's 68 square miles.
• 04:00 - 04:30: China's Unique City Definition The chapter discusses China's unique definition of a 'city' with a focus on Chongqing. In China, the term 'city' can encompass vast regions with multiple urban and rural areas, not just a singular urban center. This leads to confusing population counts, as seen with Chongqing, which is cited as having 33 million people, but this figure includes numerous distant and distinct areas, including rural residents and separate cities spread out over a large area along the Yangtze River.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Administrative Hierarchy in China The chapter discusses the administrative hierarchy in China, using Chongqing as an example. Despite its vast area, comparable to the size of Austria, Chongqing's actual urban population ranges between 8 to 16 million, though the official number is 33 million. This discrepancy is highlighted as a common issue in Chinese cities, where administrative boundaries lead to inflated population figures, creating a misleading perception of city sizes across the country.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Understanding Prefecture Level In this chapter, the concept of 'Prefecture Level' cities is explored, focusing on the misunderstanding that can arise when considering their size and population as purely urban. The chapter highlights examples such as Beijing and Changdu, which have mountainous regions included in their jurisdiction that are not part of the urban city. It further discusses how some northern cities like Harbin and Hulandil present surprising figures in terms of area and population. Despite Harbin being visually small on a map, it spans an extensive area of about 20,000 square miles. Similarly, Hulandir, credited with a population of 2.5 million, paradoxically covers close to 100,000 square miles, comparable in size to whole countries. The chapter clarifies that such comparisons often lead to misconceptions about the actual urban size and population density of these 'Prefecture Level' cities.
• 05:30 - 06:00: County Level and Administrative Complexity The chapter discusses the concept of administrative complexity and county-level organization, highlighting how certain regions like Hulandir in South Korea have vastly larger administrative areas compared to cities in the USA. It contrasts cities like Jacksonville and Anchorage with these larger administrative regions, noting that even the largest cities in the continental US are small in comparison. The chapter points out that US cities, including Los Angeles, often represent only a fraction of their entire metropolitan area, suggesting a pattern of undersized urban administrative boundaries in the US.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Summary: Broad City Definition Implications This chapter explores the size of Chinese cities and the rationale behind it. It highlights that while some cities like Shanghai might not be exceedingly large, the definition of a city in China differs significantly from other countries. In China, a city encompasses an administrative region that includes urban, countryside, and surrounding areas, making it comparable to a province in other nations.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Conclusion and Sign-Off The chapter discusses the administrative divisions of China, explaining the different tiers: province, prefecture, and county. The province level is compared to the state level in the United States and is directly controlled by the central government, with examples such as Guangdong. The aim is to clarify the often confusing structure of Chinese administrative regions.

Why Chinese Cities are Less Populated than You Think Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 China is big. Like really big. By almost every metric, China is one of the largest countries in the world in metrics such as population, GDP, military size, land area. It's a huge country. And as you might expect for a country so big, the cities are massive. These are cities with massive urban landscapes. Skyscrapers after skyscrapers, millions of millions of people. All that's true, but not always in the way you might think. Some of
• 00:30 - 01:00 China's biggest cities aren't actually as large as they seem. In fact, many of them are way less populated than you'd expect. And why? Well, it's because in China, a city doesn't always mean what you might think it does. What the hell am I talking about? Let's get into it. If you've been on Tik Tok or Instagram or literally anywhere, you might have seen the city called Chongqing. A city that looks like something out of Cyberpunk or Bladeunner. Yes, this is a real place. And you might notice something that is said in almost all of these videos about Chongqing is that it
• 01:00 - 01:30 has a population of 32 million people live in this city. Population of 32 million people. I'm about to get on a flight to supposedly the most populated city in the world. 33 million people is enormous and would put Chongqing alongside some of the largest cities in the world including Jakarta, Delhi, Tokyo and more. But if we actually compare the size of these cities and compare it to Chongqing, we can see that there is a huge huge difference. Here we have Chongqing and we can see that it's
• 01:30 - 02:00 about 20 or so miles in terms of height and width. But let's take Chongqing and place it right over Tokyo. And as you can see, Tokyo is many times more massive. And if you've ever been to Tokyo, you would know Tokyo is extremely dense in parts with entire parts of the city being covered by buildings 10 stories or taller. And in comparison, when looking at Chongqing from Google Earth, we can see many parts of the city are still sparssely populated, almost rural. This is because Chongqing has mountains that run right through the city. And yet, despite all this,
• 02:00 - 02:30 Chongqing somehow has a population of 33 million compared to Tokyo's 37 million. So, how is this possible? Well, it's not kind of. While the urban buildup of Chongqing is not too large, Chongqing is technically one of the largest cities in the world. And it's not just Chongqing. Many of the largest cities in the world by area are in China. And this can be seen again on Google Maps when you click on the city of Chongqing. You get this absolutely massive area that is 32,000 square miles or about the same size as
• 02:30 - 03:00 all of South Carolina or the country of Austria. Yes, you heard that right. A city the size of Austria. And it's clear that Chongqing, the area, is not entirely a city. Much of it is rural, forest, mountainside. So what the hell is going on? Chongqing is special in China. It is what is known as a direct administered municipality of which there are four. The three others being Shanghai, Beijing, and Tian Jin. These municipalities are at the same level of provinces in China and are directly
• 03:00 - 03:30 administered by the central government instead of any particular province. So why Chongqing? Why is it a special municipality? Well, the answer is this was largely done by the government to promote growth in western China back in around 1997 when the city separated from Sichuan province and became its own entity. Yet, despite being a state of its own, this entire giant area is considered part of the city of Chongqing. You can kind of compare this to Washington DC, which is also not part of any state. However, DC is tiny, only
• 03:30 - 04:00 68 square miles compared to, again, 32,000 square miles for Chongqing. So, another way of visualizing what's going on, imagine that Indianapolis decided to incorporate the entirety of the state of Indiana. Indiana ceases to exist and now this entire area that was once Indiana becomes one city. All the little towns that were dotted all across the countryside, part of Indianapolis. the suburbs of Chicago on the border of Illinois also part of Indianapolis. All
• 04:00 - 04:30 of Indiana now Indianapolis. This is kind of what's going on. I know what you're thinking now. What the You can see how this definition of a city might get a little confusing, right? Chongqing, the city part is absolutely massive, but not 33 million people massive. This 33 million number also includes millions of rural residents, entirely separate cities that are literally hundreds of miles apart, including many, many cities along the Yangze River, which has a lot of people. So when you take all this area about the
• 04:30 - 05:00 size of Austria, that is technically part of Chongqing, you get 33 million people. But in reality, the urban population of the city is only around 8 to 16 million people. Still big, but not Tokyo big. And like I said earlier, this is not just Shanqing. This is cities across China. All over the country, there are cities that are entirely way too goddamn big. And this can cause these cities to have what seems to be a much higher population than what they actually do have. We can look at other
• 05:00 - 05:30 areas like Beijing or Changdu, which include mountainous areas that are quite obviously not part of the urban city. However, these are not even the worst offenders. Some northern cities like Harbin which is 20,000 square miles or Hulandir which according to Wikipedia has 2.5 million people. This seems surprising because if we go on the map the city appears pretty small. But this 2.5 million people comes from the fact that Hoola and Beer is over 100,000 square miles in area about the size of
• 05:30 - 06:00 Colorado or all of South Korea. More than two times over. And yes, the USA does this too with cities like Anchorage or Jacksonville, but not to the same level. Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental US, and it's only 874 square miles. Yet, this is only 115th the size of Hulandir. And quite frankly, most US cities are undersized, including cities like LA, which only include a portion of the entire metro area. So,
• 06:00 - 06:30 why is this the case? Why are Chinese cities so damn big? Because it's not all of them, quite frankly. Shanghai is reasonably sized and could be argued that Shanghai maybe should be even bigger. Well, in many countries, a city refers to a strictly urbanized area. But in China, this is not the case. Cities in China refer to an administrative region that includes not only the urban core, but also countryside, surrounding areas, and a bunch else. This means that a city in China can actually be closer to what other countries call a province
• 06:30 - 07:00 or maybe a county. Although China also has counties that are usually smaller than the cities, which is even more confusing, but I'll try to explain all of this. To put it plainly, there are essentially five different administrative tiers in China. These five tiers are province, prefecture, county, township, and village. I'll explain the first three, not so much the last two. Let's get into it. Starting with the province level, these are essentially the US equivalent to state. They are directly under the control of the central government and include normal provinces like Guangdong,
• 07:00 - 07:30 Shandong, Jang Soo, but also autonomous regions like Tibet and Inner Mongolia and also the aforementioned cities like Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai and the other municipalities. So although technically Shanghai is a city, it has the same administrative level as any Chinese province. This is kind of simple, right? Well, it won't be for so long. So let's move on. The next tier is the prefecture level. You may have heard of prefectures like in Japan. Well, they also have them in China. Prefecters are essentially subdivisions of provinces.
• 07:30 - 08:00 But here's where it gets confusing. Almost all prefectures in China are classified as cities. Specifically, they are called prefecture level cities. These are administrative regions that contain not just a single urban center, but also multiple towns, rural areas, and in some cases even more cities within them. There are just a couple of prefectures in China that are well just prefectures and have no city correlated with them as well as some autonomous prefectures and some areas in inner Mongolia called leagues. I'm not going
• 08:00 - 08:30 to get into that, but almost all prefectures in China are prefectural cities. So in China, a city at the prefecture level is more like an entire metropolitan region, not just the urban core. For example, Chiang Sha is a prefectural city, but the city also includes mountainous areas, rural areas in entire other cities like the city of Ningang, for example. Speaking of the city of Ningang, that brings us to the next tier in China, the county level. This is a subdivision of prefectures of which is already a subdivision of
• 08:30 - 09:00 provinces. Counties come in three main forms. County level cities, counties, and districts. County level cities like Nang are smaller cities that are still governed by a larger prefecture level city like Chiang Shaw. Regular counties tend to be more rural and make up much of the farmland or wilderness of larger prefecture level cities. For example, Chiang Sha County does not include the super urban areas of Chiang Sha, but rather the more rural mountainous areas surrounding the main city. And then
• 09:00 - 09:30 finally, we have districts which are fully parts of a prefecture level city and make up its urban core. For example, Furong District is an urban district that includes some of the densest parts of Chiang Sha. And below the county level, we also have townships and villages, but again, I'm not going to get into it. But now you can see why Chinese cities are so massive. Because in China, the definition of a city is completely different from most other countries. A city can be as vast as Chongqing, functioning almost as an entirely different province. It can be a prefecture level city, which includes
• 09:30 - 10:00 not just a dense urban core, but also rural areas and even other cities within it. or it can be a county level city which is a smaller city that exists within a larger prefectural level city's jurisdiction. With such a broad system, the term of city in China can mean anything from a dense metropolis to an entire region. Making comparisons with cities in other countries um far more complicated than they first appear. This is why it's hard to just say the populations of cities in China are larger than those in the USA because
• 10:00 - 10:30 they're completely and utterly different meanings. The only real similarities being that they're also called cities. So anyways, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the video. Um, like, subscribe. Appreciate it. I'll see you guys soon. [Music]