Administrative divisions of China By its political level, when a "city" is referred to, it can be a: By its actual area and population, it can be: When used in the statistical data, the word "city" may have three different meanings: It is important to specify the definition of "city" when referring to statistical data of Chinese cities, otherwise, confusion may arise. For example, Shanghai is the largest city in China by population in the urban area but is smaller than Chongqing by the population within the administration area. Before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, China was ruled by a network of kings,
Islam in China and must in China as everywhere else rely on statistics compiled by the largest institutions, either those of the state – which tend to underestimate – or those of the religious institutions themselves – which tend to overestimate. If we include all the population of those designated ‘national’ minorities with an Islamic heritage in the territory of China, then we can conclude that there are some 20 million Muslims in the People’s Republic of China. A 2009 study done by the Pew Research Center, based on China's census, concluded there are 21,667,000 Muslims in China, accounting for 1.6% of the