Provinces of China
Provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions claimed by the People's Republic of China, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, and two Special Administrative Regions. The political status of Taiwan Province and a small fraction of Fujian Province are in dispute, which are under separate rule by the Republic of China.
Every province on mainland China has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, headed by a secretary. The Committee Secretary is effectively in charge of the province, rather than the governor of the provincial government.
Types of provincial-level divisions
Province
The government of each standard province is nominally led by a provincial committee, headed by a secretary. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province; second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government.The People's Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as "Taiwan Province", though Taiwan has not been under control of a government that ruled from mainland China since 1949, when the Republic of China lost the mainland to the Communist Party of China, which established the PRC. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China.
Municipality
A municipality or municipality directly under the administration of the central government is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their political status is higher than that of common provinces.Autonomous region
An autonomous region is a minority subject which has a higher population of a particular minority ethnic group along with its own local government, but an autonomous region theoretically has more legislative rights than in actual practice. The governor of each autonomous region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group.Special administrative region (SAR)
A special administrative region is a highly autonomous and self-governing sub national subject of the People's Republic of China that is directly under the Central People's Government. Each SAR has a chief executive as head of the region and head of government. The region's government is not fully independent, as foreign policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government, according to the basic laws.List of province-level divisions
History
Sui provinces
By the time unity was finally reestablished by the Sui dynasty, the provinces had been divided and redivided so many times by different governments that they were almost the same size as commanderies, rendering the two-tier system superfluous. As such, the Sui merged the two together. In English, this merged level is translated as "prefectures". In Chinese, the name changed between zhou and jun several times before being finally settled on zhou. Based on the apocryphal Nine Province system, the Sui restored nine zhou.Tang provinces
set up 10 "circuits" in 627 as inspection areas for imperial commissioners monitoring the operation of prefectures, rather than a new primary level of administration. In 639, there were 10 circuits, 43 commanderies, and 358 prefectures. In 733, Emperor Xuanzong expanded the number of circuits to 15 by establishing separate circuits for the areas around Chang'an and Luoyang, and by splitting the large Shannan and Jiangnan circuits into 2 and 3 new circuits respectively. He also established a system of permanent inspecting commissioners, though without executive powers.Other Tang-era circuits include the West Lingnan, Wu'an, and Qinhua circuits.
Song provinces
The Song government abolished the previous commissioners and renamed their circuits. They also added a number of "army" prefectures. Similarly, Liao and Jurchen Jin dynasties also established circuits as the first-level administrative division.Yuan provinces
China was reorganised into 11 provinces keeping most of the previous boundaries of provinces created by the previous dynasty unchanged, the Yuan Dynasty had 2 addition regions: Central region ruled by the Zhongshu Sheng and the Tibetan region ruled by the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs.Ming provinces
The Ming Dynasty kept the province system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however, it divided the original 10 provinces into 16 provinces, later 2 capital metropolitan areas and 13 provinces within China proper and 5 additional military ruled regions.Qing provinces
By the latter half of the Qing Dynasty, there were 18 provinces, all of them in China proper.Jiangsu and Anhui were originally one province called Jiangnan, with its capital at Nanjing. There was no discrete time period when the two halves of Jiangnan were split, but rather, this was a gradual process.
New provinces
- Xinjiang 1884–1912
- Fengtian 1907–1912
- Jilin 1907–1912
- Heilongjiang 1907–1912
- Taiwan 1885–1895
Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces. Military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet.
In 1884 Xinjiang became a province; in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well. Taiwan became a province in 1885, but China ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895. As a result, there were 22 provinces in China near the end of the Qing Dynasty.
ROC provinces (1912–1949)
The Republic of China, established in 1912, set up four more provinces in Inner Mongolia and two provinces in historic Tibet, bringing the total to 28. In 1931, Ma Zhongying established Hexi in the northern parts of Gansu but the ROC never acknowledged the province. However, China lost four provinces with the establishment of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria. After the defeat of Japan in World War II in 1945, China re-incorporated Manchuria as 10 provinces, and assumed control of Taiwan as a province. As a result, the Republic of China in 1946 had 35 provinces. Although the Republic of China now only controls one province, and some islands of a second province, it continues to formally claim all 35 provinces.Other province-level divisions
List of PRC/ROC province-level divisions
Greater administrative areas
Provinces
Autonomous regions
Municipalities
Special administrative regions
Administrative territories
Regions
Territories
The People's Republic of China abolished many of the provinces in the 1950s and converted a number of them into autonomous regions. Hainan became a separate province in 1988, bringing the total number of provinces under PRC control to 22.In contrast, the Republic of China also had a number of provinces under its control such as Taiwan and Fujian, which the ROC currently administers, though the ROC abolished the Xinjiang Provincial Office in 1992. In 1998, after streamlining of the two provinces, some of its powers from the Taiwan and Fujian Provincial Governments were gradually transferred to county governments. This fractured further between 2018 and 2019 when the ROC central government de facto abolished the provincial governments with most of the remaining powers given to the Executive Yuan.
"Lost territories" of China
During the 20th century, China claimed that numerous neighbouring countries and regions in Asia were "lost territories" of China. Many of these "lost territories" were under the rule of Imperial Chinese dynasties or were tributary states. Sun Yat-sen claimed that these territories were lost due to unequal treaties, forceful occupation and annexation, and foreign interference. Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, among others, were supportive of these claims. China published a series of maps during this time known as a "Map of National Shame" which showcased some of the "lost territories" that had links to various Imperial Chinese dynasties.| Name | Hanzi | Pinyin | Note |
| South Tibet | 藏南 / 阿鲁纳恰尔邦 | Zàng nán / Ā lǔ nà qià ěr bāng | Lost to the British Empire |
| The Great Northeast | Lost to the Russian Empire | ||
| The Great Northeast | Lost to the Russian Empire | ||
| Bhutan | 不丹 | Bù dān | Lost to the British Empire |
| Ryukyu Islands | 琉球群岛 | Liúqiú qúndǎo | Lost to the Empire of Japan |
| Annam | 安南都 | Ānnán dū hù fǔ | Lost to French Empire |
| Burma | 缅甸 | Miǎndiàn | Lost to the British Empire |
| Sikkim | 锡金邦 | Xíjīn bāng | Lost to the British Empire |
| Ceylon | 锡兰 | Xī lán | Visited by Admiral Zheng He in the early 15th century. First colonised by the Portuguese Empire, and much later by the British Empire. |
| Malaya | 马来亚 | Mǎ lái yà | Lost to the British Empire |
| Taiwan and Penghu | 台湾 / 澎湖县 | Táiwān / Pēnghú xiàn | Lost to the Empire of Japan |
| Korea | 朝鲜 | Cháoxiǎn | Lost to the Empire of Japan |
| Pamir Mountains/Ladakh area | Lost to the Russian Empire and the British Empire | ||
| Nepal | 尼泊尔 | Níbó'ěr | Lost to the British Empire |
| Thailand | 泰国 | Tàiguó | Became independent between British and French territories in 1904 |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 安达曼群岛 | Āndá màn qúndǎo | Lost to the British Empire |
| Sulu Archipelago | 苏禄群岛 | Sū lù qúndǎo | Lost to the Spanish Empire |
| Sakhalin | 库页岛 萨哈林岛 | Kùyè dǎo Sàhālín dǎo | Lost to the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan |
| Java | 爪哇岛 | Zhǎowā dǎo | Lost to the Dutch Empire |
| Borneo | 婆罗洲 | Póluó zhōu | Lost to the British Empire and the Dutch Empire |