Chinese cities are administrative areas that can be as big as a country. This quiz counts the urban districts of each city, so the rural counties of Chongqing and Chengdu do not count.
The map shows China alone, in detail. Each dot sits at the exact position of the city centre.
How to play
Each city is a red dot on the map from the start. The dots show where the cities are, not which one is which.
A numbered list on the left shows the ranks 1 to 10. Type the city names in any order.
You can start to type right away. You do not need to click the answer box first.
A correct name turns the dot and its rank green and shows the name and the population.
Local names, old names and English names count. Accents are not required.
A timer tracks your run. The quiz saves your best score and best time.
If you are stuck, use the give up button. The map then shows the cities you missed.
What counts in this quiz
Exactly 10 cities, ranked by population of the urban districts of each city.
The figures are from 2020 census and are rounded.
Shanghai is the biggest city with about 24.9M people.
What's not included — and why
Hong Kong is not on the list. It is a special administrative region with its own census, not a city of the mainland system.
Dongguan, Zhengzhou and Nanjing fall just outside the top 10. A different city definition moves the middle of the list around.
Good to know
Chongqing municipality has more than 32 million people, but most of them live in rural counties outside the urban districts.
Shenzhen was a fishing town of about 30,000 people in 1979.
Guangzhou and Shenzhen are only about 100 km apart, and the Pearl River Delta between them is the largest urban region on Earth.