Top 10 cities on the 2017 China Integrated City Index

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are the top three cities on the 2017 China Integrated City Index, which analyzed and evaluated 297 Chinese cities based on three main dimensions－society, economy and environment.

The index was jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission's development planning department and Cloud River Urban Research Institute, an international think tank, and aimed to offer a comprehensive assessment of the quality and sustainability of cities' development and to explore the future path of the country's urbanization.

It is an annual ranking of Chinese cities, and the first edition was published in 2016.

The ranking was built on the analysis of vast amounts of original data, including satellite remote sensing data, and utilized a total of 175 indicators to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the cities according to Zhou Muzhi, professor of economics at Tokyo Keizai University and head of Cloud River Urban Research Institute.

"With the support of such a massive amount of data, the ranking contains a lot of insightful information and some interesting development phenomena in the cities, which could provide valuable resources for policymakers," Zhou said.

Let's look at the top 10.

No 10 Chengdu

A woman takes a picture of her dog in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, on Aug 16, 2016.[Photo/VCG]