A view of Qidong, a county-level city in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/WeChat account: qdrmt0513]

Qidong, a county-level city in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, ranked 25th with an index of 80.03 on the 2022 Basic Modernization Index of County-Level Cities in China.

Kunshan in Jiangsu province topped the list with an index of 91.72.

There were 20 county-level cities in Jiangsu province included on the list.

The list was released by Competitiveness Think Tank and the Beijing Zhongxin Urban Planning and Design Institute to monitor and evaluate China's urban modernization.

These cities' modernization work in economic development, economic systems, people's livelihood, public services, cultural development, production modes, environment, and governance system and capacity was evaluated.

In 2022, the average modernization index of the top 100 cities in the list was 75.08, an increase of 2.33 over the previous year.

The average size of the top 100 county-level cities in China's basic modernization index is 906,900 permanent residents, with an urbanization rate of 65.6 percent. The average GDP exceeded 103.46 billion yuan ($14.88 billion), a year-on-year growth of 8.6 percent.