Top 5 Chinese provinces with the best quality of life? (cost, people, cons)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If you take away cities, though, it would be Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia (surprise), Zhejiang, Liaoning, Guangdong.
Of course GDP isn't everything.
I would probably say Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Liaoning and Fujian personally, since a lot of Inner Mongolia's wealth doesn't translate into wealth for the locals. The other provinces have more developed infrastructure too.
I think if you took away the cities, Yunnan would be in the top 3. Climate, air quality and water are all clean and of good quality. The problem is it's far from anything and it's tough to find employment (unless you want to teach for low pay). Shanghai, Guangdong, Taiwan, HK and Macau I think are the obvious top choices IMO. Beijing is too spread out and the air is ridiculous.
Uhh... HK and Macau are both special administrative regions in the Canton (Guangdong) Province. Also, I would not consider Taiwan as a province of China either.
If you are talking solely about development, then the obvious choices.
If you are looking at cost of living vs. wages, people, lifestyle, etc., then Sichuan (Chengdu), Yunnan (Kunming), Hainan (Haikou), Fujian (Xiamen), Shandong (Qingdao).
Quality of life is Beijing is not that great. Worst smoke, North Amerca style Sprawl, horrendous traffic and a housing price comparable to San Francisco. It has the worst of everything.
Put HK, Macau and Taiwan aside, I would go with Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong. Shandong will come next.
If HK, Macau and Taiwan are included, Taiwan would probably the best. Hong Kong's quality of life is notoriously bad no matter what the GDP per capita says.
Macau is 30 sq km with hardly 600k people, it is more like a small 4th tiered city than a province. I wouldn't put it along with the provinces with 50M+ people.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.