China creates new megacity label for biggest urban centres

A shake-up of urban planning could make it harder for residents to move to the mainland's biggest cities if it comes with tougher population controls, according to experts.

The State Council announced yesterday that it would introduce a new "megacity" category to its urban planning system, saying the country's urbanisation push had entered a "critical moment" and more measures were needed to manage population flows.

The megacity label would apply to centres with more than 10 million people, Xinhua reported. According to the 2010 national census, six cities would fall into this category - Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing , Guangzhou, Tianjin and Shenzhen. The second-biggest category will be for "very large" cities with populations of between five million and 10 million people. In all, 16 centres fall into these two groups, both of which will have limits on population inflows.

The State Council's guidelines would also raise the population limits for "small cities" from 200,000 to 500,000. And cities with a population of between 500,000 and 1 million will be reclassified as "mid-sized cities". "Large cities" will refer to those centres with a population of between 1 million and 5 million.

The State Council did not say what population and urban management policies would be introduced, but urban planners said smaller cities might be given more opportunities to grow.

Li Xun, deputy director of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, said population controls in the six megacities could become "even tighter", and it could remain very difficult to get an urban hukou, or household registration, in the 10 very large cities.