A view of Kunshan City (CFP Photo)

The Yangtze River Delta region is home to 22 of China's 105 large cities, according to a report recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), including 11 in Jiangsu Province -- the most in China.

Kunshan, a county-level city in Suzhou, was also recognized as a large city thanks to its over 1 million population and high proportion of permanent urban residents, said the NBS report based on the data from the 7th national population census.

Kunshan has topped the list of China's top 100 counties for 18 consecutive years, with a GDP of 474.8 billion yuan in 2021. The per capita GDP in Kunshan hit 226,900 yuan last year, 2.8 times the national average and also higher than Shanghai, Wuxi, Suzhou and other bigger cities.

Kunshan features a thriving electronics manufacturing industry, which began attracting foreign investment in 1990s. Its foreign trade surpassed $100 billion in 2021.

In fact, all 22 large cities in the delta region saw their GDP double in the past ten years, with an average increase of 182.5%.

Besides, Jiangsu's northern and central areas has made rapid progress in terms of per capita GDP and urbanization rate. Ten years ago, cities including Huai'an, Yancheng, Lianyungang and Xuzhou had a per capita GDP of 20,000-35,000 yuan, which now hit up to 80,000-90,000 yuan. The per capita GDP of Huai'an and Yancheng reached 99,768 yuan and 98,593 yuan respectively, up 246% and 212%.

In addition, the urbanization rate in Huai'an and Lianyungang jumped from both around 28% in 2010 to 66% and 62% in 2021.

Nantong, Xuzhou and Yancheng also had an urbanization rate of about 65% in 2021, which was all at about 30% in 2010.