Talk:Provinces of China

Image must depict all administrative divisions of China

While the image here depicts (Chinese: 省; pinyin: Shěng), a specific Chinese administrative division which is translated to English as "Province" but contains a specific meaning, the English article concerning "Provinces of China" is extremely deficient if it does not depict "Provinces of China" according to the standard English meaning of the word "Province", which is "A territory governed as an administrative or political unit of a country or empire."

Several such maps exist which depict every "territory governed as an administrative or political unit of a country or empire.", instead of showing grayed out zones in the place of provinces (in the English sense of the word), and which specify which are (Chinese: 省; pinyin: Shěng), and which are "autonomous regions" or "municipalities".

Most readers who find this article, myself included, wanted to see a complete map of the internal administrative or political units of China, and may not have been aware that every internal administrative or political unit of China was not translated as such; if someone else doesn't do this, I may not add in a copyright or fair-use acceptable images, as I have never before been inspired to attempt to change any images on Wikipedia, until I saw this one, which is remarkably deficient in displaying the topic of the article. Kaczynskisatva (talk) 22:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

The article you're looking for is Province-level divisions of China, which has a complete map of first-level administrative divisions in China. I hate this terminology too, but they're the words used by English academic sources on Chinese administration. SilverStar54 (talk) 00:39, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Special administrative regions

The article says " The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are officially considered to be province-level as well, though in reality they have much more autonomy than regular provinces, autonomous regions, or municipalities. ".

Nowhere in the PRC's constitution or in the basic laws of the two SARs says SARs are designated province level. They are local administrative regions come directly under the Central People's Government (note: ≠ State Council). Autonomous regions, provinces and municipalities are listed in the same sentence of Article 30 of the constitution, which governs the administrative divisions of the PRC. SARs are governed by Article 31. — Instantnood 19:17, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Aksai Chin

The map showing the provinces of China according to the ROC has a designation for Aksai Chin as territory "claimed by India, administered by PRC". But since this map is based on the ROC's claims, the question should be whether it is claimed by the ROC, with India's claims not being the subject here. --Metropolitan90 23:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It should be added that iı's also claimed by ROC, like "claimed by PRC and ROC".88.247.101.145 (talk) 21:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

removal of Chinese text

cgy01, Wikipedia is not space-deficient, and obviously there is some disagreement with your removal. "I want a..." sounds like a violation of WP:OWN. This is everyone's article, your aesthetics are only one consideration. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 15:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

cgy01, this is not a "little" change, and watch your uncivil edit summaries. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 01:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Do not abuse my talk page with your misplaced edits, use this article's talkpage. or move on and do something productive. your removal won't stand. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 14:23, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Kintetsubuffalo, you are not the admin of wikipedia, who are you to say my removal won't stand?

who do you think you are? really? wikipedia is for the community, why do you get to be the boss and why is it that all edits must receive your approval? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgy01 (talk • contribs) 02:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I will not even dignify this user with a response, after the racist vomit it left on my talkpage. Instead I have applied for WP:3O. The removal of the traditional Chinese is unwarranted, the provinces themselves predate the use of simplified Chinese, so researchers and those with old maps will certainly find the old glyphs useful. "I want a clean page" is not a valid reason for removal of the characters, and smacks of a violation of WP:OWN. This is everyone's article, one user's decisions are only one consideration. I submit this for the third opinion. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 13:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

changes needed to be made

most populous city should be removed as this is typically the same as the capital.. also the Chinese characters for the province capitals should be re-added. I added them a couple of years ago (w/ pinyin too!) and someone took it out —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.151.8.160 (talk) 19:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

3O on Traditional and Simplified Characters

The page containing both types of characters does not appear to be unnecessarily cluttered, and the traditional characters to add valuable and interesting information, and they do make sense from a historical perspective because many (most?) of the names pre-date the introduction of simplified characters. Readin (talk) 14:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

3O on Province only list or Province-level division list

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Um, it's sort of hard to give a third opinion without seeing any sort of discussion. Can someone explain what's been going on here? — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 03:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Well the problem is this is a Province page which suppose to only show provinces only. Comparing to Autonomous Region showing only Autonomous Region, Direct-controlled municipality showing only Municipalities, and Special Administrative Region showing only Special Administrative Region but Cgy01 insist of using a Province-level list which there is already one located at Administrative_divisions_of_China#Province_level and this page only suppose to represent Provinces not the whole province-level division. — ASDFGH =] ^talk? 03:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This map is like a superset though, it has all the provinces and autonomous regions when people search for China provinces they just want to see a map of China and how it is seperated, they won't know to do a search of things like china municipalities and china autonomous regions, if you want people to goto your autonomous regions page and specific municipalities page then you should make a link on the provinces page, but i don't think you need to be so detailed to change the map to have "provinces only".. that is being a little anal. -cgy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgy01 (talk • contribs) 04:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

We have a Administrative divisions of China page thats where your list should go that the super-set! Also we are not talking only talking about the map also the list. There is a reason why there is a sidebar on the right side that allow people to see there are more that one division under province-level division. Like I said this is a "Province" page there is a reason why we have "Province" page and a "Province-level" page. They are not the same thing this is a "encyclopedia" which suppose to sort out. You are also saying that the other Province-level divisions are the same thing as Province. An example, Special Administrative Region (a Province-level division) which enjoy more rights are the same as province which are rule by a Committee Secretary under the central government not a Chief Executive and its own laws. That is what you are saying if you put your list on this "Province" page. You are also generalizing that "they won't know to do a search of things like china municipalities and china autonomous regions." — ASDFGH =] ^talk? 05:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

ahh i see now, yes this is the page i was looking for http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_China okay i agree w/ your changes Chan (talk) 01:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Leadership of provinces

The article as it reads simply states that the secretary of the Communist Party's provincial committee is the leader of each province, as opposed to the governor of the province. This may in fact be demonstrably the case, but it can't simply be declared: it's certainly disputable, and needs to be backed up by evidence. --Jammoe (talk) 17:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

image error

Fujian province is missing a "22" in the map. Otherwise, fabulous work. Tooironic (talk) 00:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Omissions

Perhaps there should be some kind of mention of other regions that may not officially be provinces. For example, there is no mention of Tibet, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Chongqing and the special city districts (Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin). None of these are mentioned in the table or text. The image is not loading for me right now so I can't be sure if they are shown there. Ninjawailer (talk) 09:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Province (China) → Provinces of the People's Republic of China – similar to other "Provinces of _____" articles. — ASDFGH =] ^talk? 01:27, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support, since the ROC's divisions are at Administrative divisions of the Republic of China. Rennell435 (talk) 10:20, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support, because this is almost entirely about the PRC, and the current disambiguation regime violates NPOV. —HXL's Roundtable and Record 13:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Template talk:Administrative levels and divisions of the People's Republic of China sidebar which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:01, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

†

Is it necessary to mark Taiwan as "dead"? The symbol is inappropriate.--77.0.111.59 (talk) 19:02, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

That is not what that means. It signifies that there is a footnote attached. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 23:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Precision

Provinces (Chinese: 省; pinyin: Shěng), formally province-level administrative divisions (Chinese: 省级行政区; pinyin: Shěng Jí Xíngzhèngqū) are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions, 2 Special Administrative Regions, and the claimed Taiwan Province.

This passage doesn't indicate we are talking about PRC. The Republic of China on Taiwan also states in its laws that Taiwan is part of China, so does RC claim the whole PRC and more. It must be made clear that PRC and RC claim each other, it's not only the PRC. --2.245.192.184 (talk) 14:06, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I have made some changes to the wording. Tooironic (talk) 12:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Map captions

I earlier spent some time tidying up the map captions, to make them clearer and remove irrelevant detail from the third. The changes included

• removing 'map': it’s obvious all three are maps, no need to use it multiple times.
• use the common names for the countries
• the first map is simple; just a map of China in 1949
• the second compares China today with the Taiwan’s claims overlaid on the same map. It’s important to make the distinction – travel to China today and the provinces, except Taiwan, are provinces of China. Taiwan also claims them with slightly different demarcations. But the actual provinces and modern borders are those of China. It does not matter who drew the map (probably a Wikipedian).
• The third is just Taiwan’s territories and claims. Not the claims of Republic of China (1912–1949), the current claims. And there’s no need to mention or link to the Free area of the Republic of China as it’s a political term hardly used and recognised outside of Taiwan. It has no geographic meaning independent of "Taiwan", so that is all that’s needed.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 10:13, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Nope.

• I overlooked this, but it does not validate the rest.
• Except the simple fact is that the PRC (and the associated further division of Sichuan was not founded until 1949. This is an obvious ambiguity where WP:NC-CN calls for usage of "People's Republic of China".
• If the main article at Taiwan uses the proper name of the state in regards to its territorial claims, even when not juxtaposed with the PRC, then that is good enough to use the proper names of both states here.
• You still have no citation that the ROC ascribes to the pre-Oct 1949 provincial boundaries (including defunct provinces such as Chahar) as regards to mainland China. Worse, referring to the third map as representing present-day "Taiwanese claims" is simply incorrect, as the ROC Executive Yuan in Taiwan clarified that the ROC recognizes the Republic of Mongolia.
• [EDIT]: I just noticed the second map makes the same error with respect to Mongolia. Probably better to omit it altogether lest confusion or misinformation arises.

And lastly, stop using Twinkle in a content dispute. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 15:05, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

PRC false claim to Taiwan as a Province

I was blocked from editing on wikipedia by a user named Ruslik0. I think he/she has blocked me for making a correction to an article titled "Provinces of China" in which I made a change to the wording of Taiwan "Province", basically eliminating the title of Province. The PRC claims Taiwan as a province, of course, but for the vast majority of the 23 million citizens of Taiwan, this is not how they identify themselves. There is a good proportion of people in Taiwan (though still a minority) who would like to see Taiwan and China unified, but easily less than 0.01% of them would do so under the auspices of the PRC or CCP. Furthermore, the major portion of the Taiwan population would just as well have nothing to do with China if they we given a choice without threat of war or invasion. The fact is that Taiwan is an independently administered state. It is large, stable and economically independent, and has been for 70 years. It has it's own standing military, free-floating currency, legislative government, open democratic elections, and is among the top 20 or so economies in the world. The PRC has never held any jurisdiction over Taiwan, and even the old ROC only held jurisdiction over Taiwan for a couple of years before the ROC government exiled itself to Taiwan in 1949. Moreover, the term "Province" is now an anachronism because the ROC government dissolved the Taiwan "provincial government" entity in the early 1990s. Previous to that time, the ROC legislature on Taiwan had representation of all the provinces of China, but then decided in all practicality to dissolve provincial representation, including that of Taiwan. Obviously Ruslik0 is a proponent of the CCP's perspective of the situation, but he/she should not be allowed to block an edit simply because it runs counter to that perspective. If Ruslik0 is the author of the article, then he/she ought to be allowed to raise a complaint, but must at least accommodate an opposing view such as mine to exist in juxtaposition to his/her in the same article. I believe the wording of the article as it exists is misguided and spreads misinformation, nor does it reflect the central reality of 23 million people. This fact should be clearly noted on such an important platform as wikipedia. In regard to this issue, CCP censors have been waging an information war in western media and education, and unfortunately they have been winning by virtue of threats, financial leverage and sheer numbers. I don't see voices like mine overcoming their bullying approach throughout the world any time soon, but I would believe that at least a platform like wikipedia would not cave to their manipulations. Thank you, Daniel Brownwood PS what exactly is "Ruslik0"? Why does he/she have the ability to block me and my wiki account? I can't even access my account to change my password. Neptunechampiom (talk) 07:34, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Please makes use of reliable sources interpreted and balanced in light of WP:NPOV and WP:DUE to back up proposed changes. Remember that no user's personal opinions or analysis is relevant here with regards to factual issues, and that Wikipedia is not a medium for activism.

When it comes to the use of the designation "Taiwan Province" in this article, we must remember that Taiwan is relevant to this page only in relation to its de jure status as a purported province of the PRC. It should be made clear that this status is basically only a territorial claim and not an administrative reality, but it should be done in a neutral way. Big swaths of unsourced personal analysis on the definition of a province should not make it onto the page, and additions should be done in relation to their importance and prominence in reliable sources.Jancarcu (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

For the record, Neptunechampiom, no, your user has not been blocked as of 20:39 UTC 2 Feb, and no, you have no evidence to suggest the administrator Ruslik0 is somehow a proponent of the the CCP's perspective, when he has not even edited this page! CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 20:42, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your clear and thoughtful response. My account was blocked to editing around midday on Feb 2, and Ruslik0 was listed as the blocking agent. I sent off an appeal in a couple of directions, and it seems the block was lifted later that day, though I received no direct response to the effect that block was actively lifted. As for the information I was trying to amend, I will try to find primary source material(ROC gov't records or news articles) to use to cite my dispute with the designation of "province". I assume if such source material is available and accessible to wiki readers that then the dispute on terminology will stand in this article. As for "minority" viewpoints, it is true the population ratio between PRC and Taiwan is roughly 40/1, but that does not mean this issue is a random or fringe concern. Neptunechampiom (talk) 00:53, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

You will find no such source. This shows how ill-informed and biased you are. I don't think you understand the point of this article. You can try to find as many ROC sources as you want, it doesn't change how Taiwan is seen in the PRC constitution. It's already mentioned that the PRC currently doesn't administer it. I can also help you save a lot of time: You won't find any official ROC sources because mainland China, Outer Mongolia and all those islands you hear about in the news, where the PRC is in dispute with many other countries are also claimed by the ROC. This is a legal issue. You will get your sources when the ROC declares itself a new state. It doesn't matter what they've been up to the past 70 years. You should have stayed blocked because going on such a long rant about a topic you clearly know nothing about descredits your intent to contribute in an encyclopoedic manner.--2001:16B8:31DE:A700:7172:9BDF:B0FA:FE41 (talk) 22:08, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

The last reply deserves to be deleted because of its offensive tone and ill-informed and biased content 83.250.76.132 (talk) 18:07, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

予、干、沃、䒙 as alternate abbreviations

Can anyone provide a source for these? These don't seem to be official. --2001:16B8:31DE:A700:7172:9BDF:B0FA:FE41 (talk) 22:08, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Yuan Provinces.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Infobox?

Why is the infobox referring to both the People's Republic of China's provinces and Taiwan's claimed provinces? Since sources overwhelmingly refer to the PRC as "China", I feel it doesn't make sense to create this overlap between the two. Maybe we can mention Taiwan's position later in the article? Thoughts? LittleCuteSuit (talk) 21:01, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I think the attempt to combine two separate topics (provinces in the PRC and provinces in the ROC) just makes things confusing. I'm going to move that info onto the Administrative divisions of the Republic of China (1912–1949) and Administrative divisions of Taiwan pages. SilverStar54 (talk) 23:02, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Districts during the Japanese Occupation

I don't know much about this, but it seems that during the Japanese Occupation, Provinces were referred to as Districts in English. Did that reflect a change in Chinese usage? There is already a page for Mengkiang, a puppet state and later autonomous district created by the Japanese from parts of three Republican Provinces. There was another district that was a new creation by the Japanese authorities (or the Reorganised National Government of the Republic of China as the puppet state was called) - called 蘇北 Sūběi, usually rendered as Supeh in English texts. As the name suggests, I believe it was approximately what is now the northern part of Jiangsu. The Japanese authorities briefly issued postage stamps for the district in 1941, as they did in the other "Six Districts" of Northern China, in order to prevent people taking advantage of currency variations between different occupied districts and between occupied and Nationalist controlled regions. At present there is no article on Supeh on Wikipedia. Should there be? WestNab (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Pososal to remove country comparisons

I hereby propose to remove the country comparison column. The information given is not useful in any way or form and it is not even accurate (e. g. Hebei 74 - Germany 83). It is just a distraction. If nobody contests, I will remove the column.Taliopo (talk) 10:37, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Table needs legend

What does the pale yellow coloring mean for Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan? At least on the mobile version, I could not find any legend for the table or any other explanation of what the colors mean. I can deduce what the pink and green mean, but I have no idea about that off-white/light-yellow color. Please add a legend to the table. Thegoldenconciseencyclopediaofmammals (talk) 16:33, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Taiwan

Why is Taiwan on the map of China if Taiwan is not a part of China? 100.16.157.193 (talk) 21:27, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

As explained in the map's caption, Taiwan is claimed (but not administered by) China. It's colored off-yellow to show its disputed status. SilverStar54 (talk) 21:35, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Flags

Do the provinces of China have their own flags?

It is good to see that the provinces have their own two-letter codes. ----MountVic127 (talk) 05:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Nope! Actually, since 1997 provinces and municipalities are no longer legally allowed to unilaterally adopt their own flags, emblems etc. Remsense ‥ 论 08:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)