During the "2005 Chinese cities discussion forum Beijing summit" held on the 13th in Beijing, the first ten Chinese cities ranked by their quality of life are Shenzhen, Dongguan, Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Zhuhai, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Xiamen.

Based on the year-long research conducted by Beijing International Institute for Urban Development, the output titled "Report on quality of life of Chinese cities" uses subjective and objective factors in conjunction to evaluate and publish "Quality Index of Chinese cities' lifestyle" and based on this index, ranked the top 100 cities in terms of GDP. From a regional point of view, the highest quality of urban life started at the eastern region with Bohai region as a second. This quality continues to decline in the central region, reaching its lowest in the western region.

Experts said that at a certain level, the level of urban economic development is an important factor influencing a city's quality of life. From the angle of the current economic development in Chinese cities, the region with higher economic development level also shows a relatively high quality of life. But economic development level is not directly equivalent to a city's quality of life, the two are not 100 percent correlated. The 12 principal factors influencing whether a city has high quality of life are: clothing, food, housing, transportation, living, aging, disease, death, stability, environment, happiness and industry.

(Chinanews.cn September 13, 2005)