Largest City of China - Shanghai

According to the urban population data of each city, Shanghai ranks as the largest city of China.

The 2010 census put Shanghai's total population at 23,019,148, a growth of 37.53% from 16,737,734 in 2000. 20.6 million of the total population, or 89.3%, are urban, and 2.5 million (10.7％) are rural. Based on population of total administrative area, Shanghai is the second largest of the four direct-controlled municipalities of China, behind Chongqing, but is generally considered the largest city in China because Chongqing's urban population is much smaller.

The registered population of Shanghai reached more than 14.1 million by the end of 2010, and the floating population that have stayed in Shanghai for more than half a year reached nearly 8.3 million.

98.8% Of Shanghai's residents are of the Han Chinese ethnicity, while 1.2% belong to various minority groups. However, the minority population has grown by 165.54% since 2000, much faster than the overall population growth.

And Beijing ranks as the second largest city of China with a population of 19,959,563 (data based on the result on January 1st 2011)
China's third largest city is Guangzhou with a population of 13,510,651 (data based on the result on January 1st 2011)

Combining data from the 2011 census to rank China's top 5 largest cities on the basis of de facto population in urban areas of city districts: