ABSTRACT
China’s system of local administration is a highly complex one, comprised of ‘provinces’ (including autonomous regions, centrally administered municipalities and, more recently, special administrative regions), prefectures (including autonomous prefectures and prefecture-level cities), counties (including autonomous counties and county-level cities), and townships/towns. Unlike the province (sheng), the county (xian), and the township/town (xiangzhen), which constitute the three principal layers of China’s sub-national administration in both constitutional and political terms, the term ‘municipality/city’ (shi) encompasses much more despite its relatively brief history and shaky legal foundation. If we were to single out one unit of China’s local administration that has gone through the most frequent and drastic changes during the reform era, it would certainly be the ‘city,’ whose administrative boundary has spanned over multiple levels of China’s local hierarchy.2
