Hunan Ready to Transform 40 Towns and Cities into Medium-sized Cities

Hunan plans to build 40 towns and cities into medium to large-sized cities with a population of over 200 thousand in around 5 years, targeting at an increase of 1.7 percentage points in terms of urbanization rate this year, Vice Governor of Hunan Province Han Yongwen revealed on February 22 at the working conference on the province's housing and urban-rural development. Of the 40 towns and cities, Leiyang, Liling, Ningxiang and other four counties (county-level cities) will be established as large cities with a size of 500 thousand people.

In the coming five years, Hunan will push for a more comfortable life for citizens in towns, upgrade urban environment and infrastructure, and take measures to ensure the employment of migrant workers.

In 2011, Hunan had 2 mega cities, 8 large cities, 7 medium-sized cities, 12 small cities, 71 counties, and 979 organic townships. The province's urbanization rate in 2012 is estimated to rise 6.05 percentage points from 2007 to 46.5%, marking that the province's fast development in new urbanization.