The number of national metropolitan areas has increased to 14, and two of them have exceeded 5 trillion yuan in GDP

The national metropolitan area will expand rapidly in 2023, with an increase of seven in one year, equivalent to the total number of approvals approved in the previous two years, and the economic aggregate of the metropolitan area is also expanding, with the GDP of the two metropolitan areas exceeding 5 trillion yuan last year.

Recently, three metropolitan areas have released their GDP for 2023 – Nanjing, Wuhan and Chengdu have GDP of 5.1 trillion, 3.37 trillion and 2.78 trillion yuan respectively in 2023, and the Shenzhen metropolitan area has not been officially announced, but it has also exceeded 5 trillion yuan.

14 national metropolitan areas have been approved

At the beginning of February, the full text of the work report of the Shandong Provincial Government was released. In the 2023 work review, the report mentioned that "the provincial land and spatial planning and the development plans of the Jinan metropolitan area and the Qingdao metropolitan area have been approved". In the second half of last year, the news of the approval of the Qingdao metropolitan area was revealed "unofficially" in the local area, and this time it was Shandong that clearly disclosed the approval of the Jinan and Qingdao metropolitan areas.

At the end of last year, Guangdong Province issued the development plans for the Guangzhou metropolitan area, the Shenzhen metropolitan area, the west bank metropolitan area of the Pearl River Estuary, the Shanchaojie metropolitan area and the Zhanmao metropolitan area.

Since 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission has successively approved seven national metropolitan areas, including Nanjing, Fuzhou, Chengdu, Changzhutan, Xi'an, Chongqing and Wuhan. And in 2023, the national metropolitan area will expand rapidly. According to official releases from various places, within a year, seven metropolitan areas, including Shenyang, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Qingdao and Jinan, were approved.

Therefore, at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Guangdong and Shandong officially released the approval of 4 national metropolitan areas, up to now, the number of national metropolitan areas in the country has been 14, and with the approval of the Guangzhou metropolitan area and the Shenzhen metropolitan area, a breakthrough in the first-tier city metropolitan area has also been achieved.

Overall, most of the metropolitan areas approved last year have reduced the initial planning scope, which is about 20,000 square kilometers and basically covers a one-hour commuting circle. This is also the requirement of the National Development and Reform Commission for the cultivation and development of modern metropolitan areas.

Among them, the Jinan metropolitan area includes 6 cities and 25 counties and districts of Jinan, Zibo, Tai'an, Liaocheng, Dezhou and Binzhou, covering an area of more than 22,000 square kilometers, while the Qingdao metropolitan area includes the whole area of Qingdao City, Weifang Zhucheng City, Gaomi City, Donggang District of Rizhao City, Yantai Laiyang City, Laizhou City and Haiyang City, involving a total of 4 cities and 16 counties (cities and districts), covering an area of 21,500 square kilometers.

The Guangzhou metropolitan area covers the whole area of Guangzhou and Foshan, Duanzhou District, Dinghu District, Gaoyao District and Sihui City of Zhaoqing City, Qingcheng District, Qingqing District and Fogang County of Qingyuan City, with a land area of about 20,000 square kilometers, while the Shenzhen metropolitan area consists of the whole area of Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou and the Shenzhen-Shantou Special Cooperation Zone, with a land area of about 16,273 square kilometers.

After these 14 national-level metropolitan areas, which other metropolitan areas may be approved? The National Development and Reform Commission has made it clear that metropolitan areas should be gradually cultivated by relying on super-large cities or large cities with strong radiation driving capacity. As a result, there are a number of metropolitan areas that are waiting to be approved within the boundaries of megacities and some large cities.

This year's work report of the Jiangsu Provincial Government proposes to actively build the Nanjing metropolitan area, the Huaihai Economic Zone, and the Suzhou-Xichang metropolitan area. The work report of the Fujian Provincial Government also proposes to enhance the radiation and driving role of the two major metropolitan areas of Fuzhou and Xiamen-Zhangquan. Among them, the Suzhou-Xichang metropolitan area and the Xiazhangquan metropolitan area have not yet been approved. The work report of the Anhui Provincial Government shows that the development plan of the Hefei metropolitan area has been completed. The work report of the Jiangxi Provincial Government proposes to accelerate the construction of an innovative, dynamic and competitive Nanchang metropolitan area.

The GDP of the two major metropolitan areas exceeded 5 trillion yuan

While the metropolitan area is expanding rapidly, the competition between metropolitan areas is also becoming more and more fierce.

Recently, the official WeChat account of the Nanjing Metropolitan Area Construction Office announced that in 2023, the Nanjing Metropolitan Area will achieve a total GDP of 5,104.946 billion yuan, accounting for about 4.0% of the country. This is the first metropolitan area to announce that its GDP has exceeded 5 trillion yuan. In 2019, the GDP of the Nanjing metropolitan area was 3,999.754 billion yuan. In other words, in 4 years, the Nanjing metropolitan area has grown by one trillion.

It should be noted that the Nanjing metropolitan area is the first approved national-level metropolitan area and the first inter-provincial metropolitan area, with a standardized scope of 27,000 square kilometers and an expansion area of 66,000 square kilometers. The economic volume of 5 trillion yuan includes Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Huai'an, Wuhu, Ma'anshan, Chuzhou, Xuancheng 8 districts and cities, as well as Changzhou's two districts and counties under the jurisdiction of Liyang and Jintan.

In fact, in addition to Nanjing, there is another metropolitan area whose GDP exceeded 5 trillion yuan last year, and that is the Shenzhen metropolitan area that has just been approved. The Shenzhen metropolitan area consists of Shenzhen, Dongguan, Huizhou and the Shenzhen-Shantou Special Cooperation Zone. The GDP of Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou in 2023 will be 3,460.64 billion, 1,143.813 billion and 563.968 billion yuan respectively, surpassing that of the Nanjing metropolitan area.

In addition, the Guangzhou metropolitan area is also close to 5 trillion. The Guangzhou metropolitan area includes the whole area of Guangzhou and Foshan, Duanzhou District, Dinghu District, Gaoyao District, Sihui City of Zhaoqing City, Qingcheng District, Qingqing District and Fogang County of Qingyuan City. Among them, the GDP of Guangzhou and Foshan in 2023 will be 3,035.573 billion yuan and 1,327.6 billion yuan respectively, while Zhaoqing and Qingyuan will be 279.251 billion yuan and 212.019 billion yuan respectively.

In addition to the Nanjing metropolitan area, which announced last year's economic volume, the data of the Chengdu metropolitan area and the Wuhan metropolitan area were also released recently.

Prior to this, at the end of January, the Office of the Sichuan Provincial Leading Group for Promoting the Development of Chengdu Meizi Urbanization disclosed that the total economic output of the Chengdu metropolitan area in 2023 will reach 2.78 trillion yuan, accounting for 46.3% of the whole province of Sichuan.

The planning scope of Chengdu metropolitan area includes Chengdu and some districts and counties of Deyang, Meishan and Ziyang, and the planning is extended to the whole area of Chengdu, Deyang, Ziyang and Meishan. According to last year's economic data released by various cities, the total economic output of 2.78 trillion yuan in the Chengdu metropolitan area also includes the expansion of the whole area.

On February 19, the Wuhan Urban Circle Research Association of Hubei Province announced on its website that the GDP of the Wuhan Metropolitan Area will reach 3.37 trillion yuan in 2023, accounting for 60.45% of Hubei Province. According to the data released by Hubei cities, the economic volume of this metropolitan area should include Wuhan and the nine cities of Huangshi, Ezhou, Xiaogan, Huanggang, Xianning, Xiantao, Tianmen and Qianjiang, with a total area of 58,000 square kilometers.

Hubei Province was the first to put forward the concept of "Wuhan City Circle", which covers the urban clusters of the above-mentioned "1+8" cities with Wuhan as the center and a radius of about 100 kilometers. However, in December 2022, the Wuhan metropolitan area approved by the National Development and Reform Commission includes Wuhan, Huangshi, Ezhou and Huanggang.

According to Yicai, the 14 metropolitan areas currently approved include 15 cities with a GDP of one trillion yuan. In addition to the Shenyang metropolitan area, other metropolitan areas include at least one trillion GDP cities, and the Guangzhou metropolitan area and Shenzhen metropolitan area both contain two trillion GDP cities. The metropolitan area has become the backbone of economic growth in the region and even in the country.