Cities play an important role in population distribution and economic development. Policies which alter city systems can create new patterns of spatial economic development. This paper, using the most recent data, examines changes in China's city hierarchy, urban policy and spatial development in the 1980s in international, national and local contexts. The time series data show that the process of urbanisation had been gradual between 1949 and the late 1970s but accelerated rapidly in the 1980s. The growth of cities and towns in various size categories reflects the influence of urban policy in reshaping China's urban hierarchy. Using multiple measures of urban primacy, the analysis suggests that China has distinctive city systems at the regional level varying along demographic, industrial and infrastructural dimensions. Moreover, there is a growing discrepancy in socioeconomic development between inland and coastal cities that is consistent with the recent policy of favouring the coastal economy. The study provides perspectives and evidence on the extent to which economic efficiency and spatial equality are balanced under a changing model of socialist urban development.
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