Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province has the greatest development potential in the country, Sina Finance reported on Friday.
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong province followed Shenzhen on a list of Chinese cities with great development potential by Hengda Research Institute.
The other cities on the list's top 10 include Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan province, Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province, Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, Chongqing in Southwest China's Sichuan province, North China's Tianjin and Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang province.
China's first and second-tier cities, having great potential for population agglomeration, produced 46.5 percent of the country's GDP with 25.5 percent of the total population, the report said.
In terms of industrial innovation, first and second-tier cities have 70 percent of the country's listed companies and 75 percent of granted invention patents, with Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen carrying absolute advantage.
Over 30 cities in East China are among the top 50 cities, and the performance of cities in the Yangtze River and Pearl River Deltas are particularly outstanding, the report said.
