Shenzhen listed as global first-tier city

Writer: Zhang Qian  | Editor: Holly Wang  | From:  | Updated: 2018-11-19

Advancing from a Beta ranking to Alpha, Shenzhen has for the first time entered a list of the world’s first-tier cities, according to Classification of Cities 2018 published by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) on Wednesday.

As one of the most prestigious agencies to rate global cities, GaWC is a think tank that studies the relationships between world cities in the context of globalization and measures cities in terms of their advanced producer services and integration into the world city network. It has been publishing global city rankings since 2000.

In the Classification of Cities list, GaWC ranks cities into four different levels — Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Sufficiency — by taking into account many factors. Economic factors are deemed more important than cultural or political factors in this ranking.

Each category has subrankings, such as Alpha++, Alpha+, Alpha and Alpha-, indicating each city’s place in the global economy.

There are a total of 23 Chinese cities in this year’s Alpha, Beta and Gamma categories. Shenzhen is listed in the Alpha- group this year, advancing from the Beta group from the last list issued in 2016.

London and New York are in the Alpha++ group, while Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Paris, Dubai and Tokyo make up the Alpha+ cities, according to the list.

The Alpha cities include Milan, Chicago, Moscow, Toronto, San Paulo, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Jakarta, Mumbai, Miami, Brussels, Taipei, Guangzhou, Buenos Aires, Zurich, Warsaw, Istanbul, Bangkok and Melbourne.

As for Alpha- cities, the list includes Amsterdam, Stockholm, San Francisco, New Delhi, Santiago, Johannesburg, Dublin, Vienna, Montreal, Lisbon, Barcelona, Luxembourg, Bogota, Manila, Washington D.C., Prague, Munich, Rome, Riyadh, Budapest, Houston and Shenzhen.

In 2000, only five Chinese cities made it onto the top 100 list, namely Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Guangzhou. This year, a total of 11 cities are included in the top 100.

The 2018 result is based upon the office networks of 175 advanced producer service firms in 707 cities.