Smart Cities in China: A Brief Overview

Accordingto official statistics for 2018, in the past two decades, China has made remarkable achievement in urbanization process. However, the rapid growth of urbanization brings great challenges to the urban governance. To address the challenges brought about by massive population growth, smart cities have been proposed and continuously developed in practice. This article introduces the urbanization process and its characteristics, analyzes the developments and typical characteristics of smart cities, and reflects on existing challenges. The research shows that the two most prominent Chinese characteristics in the construction of smart cities are people-oriented and in-depth urban informatization.