ABSTRACT

It is well known that China is the largest country in the world in terms of population. China’s total population of 1.31 billion in 2005 was 20.6 percent of the world population. That means that one out of every five human beings is Chinese. This huge population size suggests the importance and the complicated relation of China to the rest of the world. Because about onehalf of the Chinese now live in cities, this contribution focuses on China’s urbanization in the context of globalization since the early 1980s. It discusses the history and development trends of Chinese cities,

painting a holistic picture of Chinese cities, and exploring internal driving forces to China’s urbanization including the nation’s history, culture, and urban policy, as well as external forces such as global capital mobilization, in an approach that compares the Chinese case to urbanization in other countries.