The rankings of the top 10 provincial capitals are about to see a major shake-up.
After taking a commanding lead in growth rate in the first quarter and the first half of the year, Hefei, which is in full swing in the first three quarters, still maintains an overwhelming lead in growth rate.
The Hefei Bureau of Statistics revealed that in the first three quarters, the city's gross domestic product (GDP) reached 1.118 trillion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 6.5% at constant prices. This 6.5% growth rate is 1.9 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate of 4.6%, temporarily ranking first among all trillion-yuan cities that have released relevant data so far, and is very likely to stay in the first place.
After all, Hefei's growth rate ranked first in both the first quarter and the first half of the year. Even more impressive is its increment: Hefei's GDP in the first three quarters increased by 90.76 billion yuan compared with the same period of last year. This increment exceeds that of Nanjing, a city in the top 10 national cities, ranking 11th across the country.
The main driving force for Hefei's growth is industry: the added value of the secondary industry (broad sense industry) reached 420.22 billion yuan, up 10.4%. This ranking ties with Wuhan for the first place among trillion-yuan cities. The added value of industries above designated size increased by 28.7%, maintaining double-digit growth for 35 consecutive months, and this growth rate ranks first among trillion-yuan cities with no other cities catching up.
The key driving force behind the strong growth of Hefei's related industries is undoubtedly the electronic information industry associated with chips. Hefei disclosed that in the first three quarters, the added value of the manufacturing of computers, communications and other electronic equipment increased by 106.2%, doubling compared with the same period of last year, which is an astonishingly high growth rate.
The ranking of top 10 provincial capitals is about to see major changes
With the rapid rise of Hefei and the continuous slowdown of Changsha's growth rate, there may be a major reshuffle among several cities in the middle GDP range, or the top 10 provincial capitals in the next few years, with major changes concentrated from the 6th to the 10th provincial capital: Changsha is likely to be successively overtaken by Zhengzhou, Fuzhou and Hefei.
At the end of 2025, the 6th to 10th provincial capitals in the ranking are Changsha, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Jinan and Hefei in sequence. Last year, Hefei had caught up with Jinan, and had overtaken Jinan in the first half of this year, so there is no suspense that it will surpass Jinan for the whole year. Two years later, the ranking will most likely become Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Hefei, Changsha, Jinan. By the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the ranking is expected to become Hefei, Fuzhou, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Jinan or Fuzhou, Hefei, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Jinan.
At the end of last year, Changsha's GDP was 1.573782 trillion yuan, ranking 15th in China. It was 49.3 billion yuan higher than Zhengzhou which ranked 16th nationwide, 62.55 billion yuan higher than Fuzhou which ranked 17th nationwide, and 152.782 billion yuan higher than Hefei which ranked 19th nationwide.
But the situation has completely changed this year. Changsha's growth rate in the first three quarters is still only 1.6%, which is still at the bottom of the ranking. The most critical indicator is the increment: Changsha's GDP increment in the first three quarters is only 27.923 billion yuan. In the same period, Zhengzhou's increment reached 67.232 billion yuan, nearly 40 billion yuan higher than Changsha's, and its full-year increment will most likely exceed Changsha's by 50 billion yuan, which means Zhengzhou may overtake Changsha by the end of this year. Fuzhou's increment in the first three quarters is 43.9 billion yuan higher than Changsha's, and Fuzhou is also likely to overtake Changsha by the end of the year.
As for Hefei, it was far behind Changsha at the end of last year, but over the past two decades, Hefei has overcome all obstacles and achieved leaps in its ranking. Hefei has already overtaken Jinan in the first half of the year. Hefei's GDP increment in the first three quarters of this year reached 92.76 billion yuan, 64.837 billion yuan higher than Changsha's. Its full-year increment may exceed Changsha's by 100 billion yuan, which means that by the end of this year, the gap between Hefei and Changsha will shrink from more than 150 billion yuan last year to about 50 billion yuan.
If this momentum continues next year, the probability that Hefei will overtake Changsha by the end of next year will be very high.
Some people may say that Changsha will not stand still, nor will it stay in a downturn forever.
But: First, Changsha's slow growth rate has lasted for several years, and most critically, its growth rate has slowed down significantly this year. The growth rate in the first quarter was only 3%, 2.5% in the first half of the year, and 1.6% in the first three quarters.
Second, Changsha is certainly seeking changes and industrial transformation and upgrading, but such transformation cannot be completed in one or two years, and its growth rate is difficult to rebound immediately.
Cities that have seized industrial dividends and era dividends this year, such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Wuhan, Hefei and other cities, all started layout a few years ago, more than ten years ago, or even twenty years ago. For example, Hefei's CXMT and Wuhan's Yangtze Memory were both established 10 years ago. Guangzhou's CanSemi Semiconductor was also established 9 years ago.
Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou need no further explanation, as industry has always been their core advantage. Although Changsha is known as the top city for construction machinery, this industry is closely linked with the real estate sector and large-scale infrastructure construction. In the past few years, the real estate sector has continued to adjust, and the national fixed investment in large-scale infrastructure has also declined, which has affected the industrial development of Changsha.
On the whole, Changsha's industrial strength is still relatively weak. Changsha's industrial revenue in 2024 (the 2025 data has not yet been released) was 977.567 billion yuan. For comparison, Hefei's industrial revenue in 2025 reached 1.606661 trillion yuan. The gap in industrial strength between the two cities continues to widen: the growth rate of added value of industries above designated size in Changsha in the first three quarters is only 0.6%, while that of Hefei is as high as 28.7%.
Third, Changsha's leading industry, the automobile industry, is declining. According to the data disclosed by the Changsha Bureau of Statistics, Changsha currently has three manufacturing industries with revenue exceeding 100 billion yuan, which are ranked from high to low as: automobile manufacturing, computer, communication and electronic equipment manufacturing, and tobacco manufacturing.
In the first three quarters, Hunan's automobile output was 1.0074 million units, down 14.5% from 1.1786 million units in the same period of last year. Hunan's automobile manufacturing industry is basically concentrated in Changsha, so the data of Hunan is roughly the data of Changsha. Most critically, Changsha has been indulging in internet-famous consumption for many years, and these economic activities are fleeting and cannot support the long-term economic development of a region, especially at the moment when consumption is shifting to a new stage.
Changsha is certainly making changes. Changsha's 15th Five-Year Plan clearly puts forward that it will take future industries such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology and gene technology as key directions, establish an input and risk sharing mechanism for future industries, and seize the commanding height of the next round of industrial development.
Among them, embodied intelligence is the most anticipated field. As the largest construction machinery industrial base in China, Changsha has a large-scale industrial scene rarely seen across the country, which is the scarcest resource for robot training. The Hunan Embodied Intelligence Innovation Center has gathered nearly 30 robot enterprises, gradually forming a full-chain ecology covering R&D, testing, manufacturing and application.
At the same time, continuous breakthroughs have been made in brain-computer interface and quantum technology in Changsha. The Furong Laboratory Brain-Computer Interface Innovation Center was inaugurated, and the "IMIE Intelligent Retina" completed its first clinical verification; achievements including the "Galaxy Kunteng" optical quantum computing system and quantum absolute gravimeter are being accelerated for industrialization, and quantum measurement is moving towards practical application.
However, these layouts require patience and time, and it is difficult to see results in a short period of time. Therefore, Changsha will still face considerable ranking pressure in the next five years.
The suspense remains between Fuzhou and Hefei
In the next five years, there is no suspense that Hefei and Fuzhou will overtake Zhengzhou and Changsha, especially Fuzhou, which will complete the overtaking within this year and next year.
The only suspense is whether Hefei will overtake Fuzhou first, or Fuzhou will overtake Hefei first.
Personally, I think the possibility that Hefei will take the lead over Fuzhou is higher. As a highly discussed city in recent years, Hefei has gained sufficient exposure, while Fuzhou has always been regarded as a low-profile provincial capital that has not received enough attention.
But from a data perspective, Hefei has performed extremely well in the past five years, and Fuzhou has performed even better than Hefei.
First, its GDP has reached a new level every year. It exceeded 1 trillion yuan in 2020, and reached 1.5 trillion yuan in 2025. Its total GDP increment in five years reached 504.391 billion yuan, with a five-year growth rate of 50.1%.
Second, it successively overtook two provincial capitals within five years, and its ranking jumped from the previous 10th to 8th. Its compound growth rate of 50.1% is higher than Hefei's 42%, and its ranking rising speed is also faster than Hefei's.
Fuzhou is still performing strongly this year. In the first three quarters, Fuzhou's GDP growth rate reached 5.1%, and its increment reached 71.815 billion yuan, more than 20 billion yuan lower than Hefei's.
Behind Fuzhou's strong performance, the logic is actually similar to that of Hefei: on the one hand, it benefits from the strong provincial capital strategy, and on the other hand, it benefits from the layout of emerging industries.
Regarding the strong provincial capital strategy, Fujian Province issued the Several Opinions on Supporting Fuzhou to Implement the Strong Provincial Capital Strategy in 2021. Public data shows that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Fujian Province gave priority to arranging 19 industrial projects with investment exceeding 10 billion yuan in Fuzhou, accounting for 42% of the province's total, covering key fields such as new energy vehicles, high-end chemical industry and digital economy, providing key support for Fuzhou to cultivate 6 hundred-billion-yuan industrial clusters and 4 hundred-billion-yuan industrial parks.
The strong provincial capital strategy, on the one hand, has enhanced Fuzhou's status as the provincial capital, and on the other hand, has boosted the development of Fuzhou's new quality productive forces.
To focus on the development of Fuzhou's new quality productive forces, we can refer to two sets of data:
First, the upgrading of old industries. Textile and chemical fiber is still an important industry in Fuzhou, but its development mode is different from the past. Artificial intelligence, 5G and industrial internet have been introduced into production lines; enterprises such as Hengshen have extended their business to new materials and new energy raw materials; the steel industry is also transforming to steel for high-end manufacturing and circular economy. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Fuzhou's technological transformation investment increased by 19% annually, and 588 enterprises completed the acceptance of digital transformation in 2025.
Second, emerging industries have become important growth poles. Industries including new display, optoelectronic information, new energy vehicles, offshore wind power, biomedicine, hydrogen energy and new materials are growing rapidly, among which offshore wind power is particularly representative. Fuzhou has formed a complete industrial chain from complete machines to key components, and has continuously refreshed the record of large-capacity offshore wind turbines. Meanwhile, in 2025, the output value of strategic emerging industries of Fuzhou's industries above designated size accounted for 43.45% of the total output value of industries above designated size, 9.38 percentage points higher than that in 2020, ranking first in the province.
On the whole, Fuzhou has performed excellently, but in the next five years, it will still be difficult to resist the gradual overtaking from Hefei. At the end of 2025, Fuzhou's GDP leads Hefei by 90.232 billion yuan, and this gap will shrink to about 60 billion yuan by the end of this year. By the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Hefei may take the lead over Fuzhou.
This article is from the WeChat official account "City Finance", author: Yu Fei, published with authorization from 36Kr.