龙信明 BLOG     Global Edition              Shanghai Diary     Watching China

China’s Megacities China to Create World's Largest Megacity With 42 Million People From various articles in the London Telegraph

A map displaying the area that will eventually merge to become one megacity China is planning to create the world's biggest mega city by merging nine cities to create a metropolis twice the size of Wales with a population of 42 million City planners in south China have laid out an ambitious plan to merge together the nine cities that lie around the Pearl River Delta. The "Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One" scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales. The new mega-city will cover a large part of China's manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.

Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong. "The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas," said Ma Xiangming, the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and a senior consultant on the project. However, he said no name had been chosen for the area. "It will not be like Greater London or Greater Tokyo because there is no one city at the heart of this megalopolis," he said. "We cannot just name it after one of the existing cities." "It will help spread industry and jobs more evenly across the region and public services will also be distributed more fairly," he added. Mr Ma said that residents would be able to use universal rail cards and buy annual tickets to allow them to commute around the mega-city. Twenty-nine rail lines, totalling 3,100 miles, will be added, cutting rail journeys around the urban area to a maximum of one hour between different city centres. According to planners, phone bills could also fall by 85 per cent and hospitals and schools will be improved. "Residents will be able to choose where to get their services and will use the internet to find out which hospital, for example, is less busy," said Mr Ma. Pollution, a key problem in the Pearl River Delta because of its industrialisation, will also be addressed with a united policy, and the price of petrol and electricity could also be unified. The southern conglomeration is intended to wrestle back a competitive advantage from the growing urban areas around Beijing and Shanghai. By the end of the decade, China plans to move ever greater numbers into its cities, creating some city zones with 50 million to 100 million people and "small" city clusters of 10 million to 25 million. In the north, the area around Beijing and Tianjin, two of China's most important cities, is being ringed with a network of high-speed railways that will create a super-urban area known as the Bohai Economic Rim. Its population could be as high as 260 million. The process of merging the Bohai region has already begun with the connection of Beijing to Tianjing by a high speed railway that completes the 75 mile journey in less than half an hour, providing an axis around which to create a network of feeder cities. As the process gathers pace, total investment in urban infrastructure over the next five years is expected to hit £685 billion, according to an estimate by the British Chamber of Commerce, with an additional £300 billion spend on high speed rail and £70 billion on urban transport.

China's Existing Megacities Including Hong Kong and Taiwan, there are over 160 cities in China with more than a million residents. In addition, there are five cities with metropolitan areas with more than 10 million residents – qualifying them as "mega-cities". By 2025, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co., there will be more than 220 cities with more than a million people each. Read also China's Boomtowns

A photo of downtown Chongqing - an island at the head of the Three Gorges CHONGQING Straddling the Yangtze river in the south west, Chongqing became the world's largest municipality on 14 March 1997, when Chinese planners merged together 19 districts, 17 counties and four autonomous counties to create an urban-area population of around 35 million. Chongqing is one of the cities notable for history and culture in China, and serves as the economic centre of the Upstream Yangtze area, a modern manufacturing centre and a transportation hub for Southwest China. Administratively, it is one of China's four direct-controlled municipalities (the other three are Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin), and the only such municipality in western China, the Province having been separated from Sichuan, of which it had been a part.

The commercial center of W China, it commands a large river trade. Surrounded on three sides by water, it is situated on a rock promontory. A flourishing industrial city, it was opened for direct foreign trade in 1979. In the 1980s it became the site of an economic experiment, where factory managers were given more decision-making power and allowed to channel profits into expansion. The early 21st century saw Chongqing develop as China's largest inland urban area to provide economic opportunity for the surrounding region's poorer rural inhabitants.

The Puxi side of the Yangtze River, eternally popular with tourists and locals alike SHANGHAI Shanghai is is the eighth largest city in the world and the largest of China's cities, comprised of 16 districts, 3 counties and 205 towns, with its urban area home to at least 25 million people, possibly 30 million. Perhaps half of these are not native Shanghainese but migrants from other areas in China who have come for the business and career opportunities that naturally exist in such a large and international city. Shanghai is one of several municipalities that has province-level status. Situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta, Shanghai borders Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in the west, East China Sea in the east and Hangzhou Bay in the south.

Shanghai is one of the most important cities in China, being the country's financial center as well as a multi-cultural metropolis with modern as well as traditional features. One of the busiest ports in the world, Shanghai became the largest cargo port in the world in 2005. The city is also a popular tourist destination, owing to the presence of numerous museums, towers, gardens and temples.

A photo of downtown Beijing at night - a friendly city with exquisite food BEIJING Beijing (formerly Peking) is the political, cultural and educational nerve center of China, and is one of the four municipalities with provinicial status in China's administrative structure. It has been the country's capital for the past seven hundred years. The city has a greater urban population of about 20 million people, and is rapidly spreading towards the coast as more and more Chinese are drawn to the centre of the country's political and economic decision-making. Beijing is situated on the northern tip of the rough triangular North China Plain. The Great Wall of China stretches along the northern part of Beijing Municipality, which is the greatest tourist attraction for the visitors coming to the city.

Another attraction in the city is the ‘Forbidden City’, which is centrally located in Beijing. It is the ancient imperial palace of the emperors of China and is the world’s largest surviving palace complex. The Summer Palace is another astonishing and enjoyable attraction for visitors.

A photo of a portion of downtown Guangzhou - a shopper's delight GUANGZHOU Among the largest cities in the country, Guangzhou was the seat of the revolutionary movement under Sun Yat-sen in 1911; the Republic of China was proclaimed there. A short distance from Hong Kong, China's southern capital has an official population of about 12 milion. However, the sprawl of factories extending from the city in all directions means its true metro population is far higher. Guangzhou is the transportation, industrial, financial, and trade center of S China. It is a special economic development zone and an important trading point with Hong Kong. The hub of water transportation along the Pearl River, it is the southern terminus of the Guangzhou-Wuhan railroad.

The city has an integrated steel complex, paper mills, a long-established textile industry (silk, cotton, jute, and more recently synthetic fibers), and factories producing tractors, machinery, machine tools, newsprint, refined sugar, small appliances, tires, bicycles, sports equipment, porcelain, cement and chemicals. Traditional arts and crafts, principally ivory and jade carvings, are still produced locally, and Guangzhou is one of the marketplaces for China's great national trade expositions. The city's enormous concentration of commerce also provides plenty of choice for visitors seeking nature, history and culture. Guangzhou has a massive number of malls and retail stores, and the world's largest collection of true wholesale markets at which it is possible to purchase almost anything at very attractive prices. The city is a true shoppers' paradise. Guangzhou has a worldwide reputation for good food. It has more restaurants and teahouses than any other city in China, and Cantonese cuisine is famous everywhere for its color, fragrance, taste and presentation.

A photo of downtown Tianjin - near Beijing, and a good place to live TIANJIN Tianjin is one of the four municipalities that functions as a a politically-independent provincial unit, directly under the Central Government of China. It is an international harbor and economic center in the north of China, and is also well-known for its profound historical and cultural heritage. The city has been designated a special economic zone in order to increase its foreign trade and investment. The last of China's five key "National Central" cities, Tianjin lies on the north east coast and has become a major hi-tech centre and the site of China's first Airbus factory. Its municipal population is estimated at higher than 12 million.

Tianjin is located at northeast of North China Plain, facing Bohai River on east and bordering the Yanshan Mountain in north. It is a strategic location surrounding and protecting Beijing, only 120 kilometers from the capital and connected by a 380 Kph HSR train system. The third largest city in China, Tianjin is a port at the confluence of the Hai River with the Grand Canal. Tianjin is a leading international port of China and the collection and distribution center for the N China plain, connected by rail with much of China. Tianjin is an important manufacturing center, with iron and steelworks, textile mills (cotton, woolen, and hemp), machine shops, a chemical industry based on salt, flour mills and other food-processing establishments, paper mills, and plants making heavy machinery, automobiles, precision instruments, cement, fertilizer, rubber products, carpets, lubricants, computers and computer components, and telecommunications equipment.

In 2011, there were 25 mega-cities in the world, with Greater Tokyo already having a population greater than Australia and New Zealand combined. A mega-city is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population of more than 10 million people. Greater Tokyo – 34.2 million (population) 0.6 per cent growth (between 2009 and 2010) Greater Shanghai – 28,800,000, 2.2pc Guangzhou – 24,900,000, 4pc growth Seoul – 24,500,000, 1.4pc growth Delhi – 23,900,000, 4.60pc growth Mumbai – 23,300,000, 2.9pc Mexico City – 22,800,000, 2.00pc New York City – 22,200,000, 0.3pc Sao Paulo – 20,800,000, 1.4pc Manila – 20,100,000, 2.5pc Jakarta – 18,700,000, 2pc Los Angeles – 17,900,000, 1.10pc Osaka – 16,800,000, 0.15pc Karachi – 16,700,000, 4.90pc Calcutta – 16,600,000, 2.00pc Cairo – 15,300,000, 2.6pc Buenos Aires – 14,800,000, 1pc Moscow – 14,800,000, 0.2pc Dhaka – 14,000,000, 4.1pc Beijing – 13,900,000, 2.7pc Tehran – 13,100,000, 2.60pc Istanbul – 13,000,000, 2.8pc London – 12,500,000, 0.7pc Rio de Janeiro – 12,500,000, 1pc Lagos – 12,100,000, 3.2pc *This list is an estimate due to the difficulty in defining some mega cities and accurately estimating some populations.