China will apply new standards to its city classification system due to the country’s urbanization, the State Council said in a statement released on Nov 20.

As China has made great progress in urbanization in the past decades, there has been a surge in the number and size of cities, so the original classification standards no longer apply to the current situation, the statement said.

The government decided to add a tier to the existing system, based on a city’s population, thus increasing the number of tiers from four to five - to improve population management and city planning.

Under the new standards, cities with a population under 500,000 are called “small-sized cities”, which can be divided into “ TypeⅠ”, with a population between 200,000 and 500,000, and “ TypeⅡ” with a population under 200,000.

“Medium-sized cities” are cities with a population between 500,000 and 1 million.

Cities with a population of 1 to 5 million are defined as “large-sized cities”, with two categories: “TypeⅠ” with a population between 3 and 5 million, and “TypeⅡ” with a population between 1 and 3 million.

“Very large-sized cities” refers to cities with a population between 5 and 10 million.

And those with a population of more than 10 million are classified as “super large-sized cities”.

The statement also said local authorities are required to update their policies and standards accordingly.