Revisiting the "strong provincial capital" strategy: Why are northern provinces more proactive?

The "strong provincial capital" is not a new topic, but this year, many provinces have reaffirmed this development direction.

Since September, multiple regions have once again proposed to strengthen the provincial capital at work conferences.

On September 5, the special training course for provincial-level officials in Hebei opened, and Shijiazhuang proposed to vigorously implement the "strong provincial capital" strategy, strive to break the trillion-yuan GDP mark as soon as possible and enhance its primacy index; on September 11, Zhengzhou held a meeting of leading officials, which put forward new requirements for Zhengzhou, namely "improving the primacy index, forging new advantages, and enhancing radiation capacity".

Such arrangements are not isolated cases. In the previous month, Jiangxi, Shanxi, Gansu and other regions also successively made arrangements for the development of their provincial capitals.

Jiangxi proposed to implement the provincial capital leading strategy with greater efforts, promote the high-quality development of Nanchang's real economy, and later stated that Nanchang should "exceed the trillion-yuan GDP mark as soon as possible"; Shanxi proposed that Taiyuan should give full play to the leading role of the provincial capital city, and expand, strengthen and optimize its industrial foundation; Lanzhou and Wuwei held a strategic cooperation symposium on the strong provincial capital action, proposing to give play to Lanzhou's role as a "core traction", and deepen regional cooperation and coordinated development between the two cities.

From "strong provincial capital" to "provincial capital leadership", different provinces have different expressions, but their core orientation is relatively consistent, that is, to further strengthen the provincial capital, enhance the agglomeration capacity of the provincial capital in industry, innovation, population and other aspects, and at the same time boost the driving role in the development of the whole province.

After the "strong provincial capital" strategy has been implemented for many years, why have many provinces re-emphasized this strategy this year?

Northern Provinces Are More Active

The primacy index of a provincial capital usually refers to the proportion of the provincial capital's GDP in the total GDP of the province. This indicator can directly show how much weight the provincial capital occupies in the economic map of a province, and can also reflect to a certain extent the degree to which population, industry and economic resources are gathered in the provincial capital.

Generally speaking, if the GDP of the provincial capital accounts for about 30% of the province's total, it indicates that the provincial capital has a relatively strong economic agglomeration and driving effect; if this proportion is lower than 20%, it means that the provincial capital accounts for a relatively limited share in the province's economy; if the proportion exceeds 50%, it indicates that the province's economy has a high degree of dependence on the provincial capital.

It is worth noting that among the several provinces that have recently re-proposed the "strong provincial capital" strategy, the GDP of their provincial capitals does not account for 30% of the province's total.

In 2025, Zhengzhou's GDP reached 1.52 trillion yuan, accounting for 22.9% of Henan's total GDP; Shijiazhuang's GDP was 865.17 billion yuan, accounting for about 17.6% of Hebei's total GDP; Taiyuan's GDP was 538.245 billion yuan, accounting for about 21.1% of Shanxi's total GDP.

In terms of economic volume, Zhengzhou has entered the ranks of trillion-yuan GDP cities, and is not at the same development stage as Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan. However, from the perspective of its proportion in the province's total GDP, there is still room for further improvement of Zhengzhou's concentration in Henan's economy; Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan are faced with the task of expanding the economic volume of the provincial capital, and also need to further enhance the driving role of the provincial capital for the whole province.

It is precisely for this reason that although the development foundations and stages of the three regions are different, they have coincidentally re-emphasized the improvement of the primacy index of provincial capitals this year.

Sorting out the relevant arrangements in the past two months shows that the provinces that re-emphasize "strong provincial capital" are mostly concentrated in northern and central China.

A noteworthy background is that there has long been a certain gap in economic development between the north and the south, and some northern provinces are facing relatively greater pressure on economic growth and transformation. In this context, strengthening the provincial capital and cultivating a more driving central city has become an important starting point for some provinces to enhance their development momentum.

In contrast, some economically developed southeast coastal regions have cultivated a number of cities with strong strength after years of development, and the support for economic growth is more diversified. For some northern and central provinces with relatively weak economic foundations, forming a growth pole by strengthening the provincial capital, and then driving the development of surrounding areas and the whole province through the provincial capital, is a more feasible path. Jiangxi is a typical example.

As one of the two provincial capitals in central China that have not yet reached the trillion-yuan GDP mark, Nanchang faces particularly prominent pressure.

In 2025, Jiangxi's GDP was 3.6 trillion yuan, and Nanchang's GDP was 814.169 billion yuan. In terms of total economic output, there is still a large gap between Nanchang and some strong provincial capitals in central China. In 2025, the GDP of Wuhan and Changsha reached 2.21 trillion yuan and 1.57 trillion yuan respectively, both significantly higher than that of Nanchang. In addition, Wuhan and Changsha are both "double ten thousand cities" (cities with GDP exceeding one trillion yuan and permanent resident population exceeding 10 million).

From the perspective of the economic primacy index of provincial capitals, Nanchang's GDP accounts for about 22.6% of Jiangxi's total, ranking 19th among the 27 provincial capitals across the country, and the agglomeration effect of the provincial capital is weak.

Corresponding to the economic volume is the ability to attract population and industries.

For a long time, Jiangxi has been under the pressure of population loss, and a large number of laborers go to Guangdong, Zhejiang and other places for work. At the end of 2025, the permanent resident population of Jiangxi was 44.74 million, a decrease of 280,000 from the previous year.

In this context, the significance of strengthening Nanchang is not only to expand the economic volume of the provincial capital itself, but also to enhance the capacity to carry industries and jobs within the province, make Nanchang an important node for attracting population and industries, and further give play to its driving role in surrounding areas and the whole province.

The Connotation of "Strong Provincial Capital" Is Extending

This year, many provincial capitals have re-emphasized "strong provincial capital", but an obvious change is that the requirements for provincial capitals are no longer only to expand the total economic volume and improve the primacy index, but also to further emphasize that the development momentum of the provincial capital should be transmitted to surrounding cities.

At the leading officials meeting in Zhengzhou in September, the expression of the development requirements for Zhengzhou is "improving the primacy index, forging new advantages, and enhancing radiation capacity".

Among them, "enhancing radiation capacity" is put forward separately, which means that the foothold of a strong provincial capital is no longer only the development of Zhengzhou itself, but also how to extend Zhengzhou's advantages in industry, talent, technology, transportation and other aspects to surrounding areas.

When Henan recently promoted the construction of Zhengzhou Metropolitan Area, it also clearly proposed to promote the coordinated interaction between the central city and surrounding cities, and push forward the construction of industrial belts such as Zhengzhou-Kaifeng automobile, Xuchang-Zhengzhou Port precision manufacturing, and Zhengzhou-Luoyang advanced materials.

Nanchang's approach is also very typical.

In February this year, Nanchang held a work promotion meeting for the implementation of the provincial capital leading strategy, proposing to "build a strong and solid Nanchang Metropolitan Area". In this year's government work report, Nanchang also proposed to strengthen interaction with Ganjiang New Area, Jiujiang, Fuzhou and other regions, promote the coordination between Nanchang-Jiujiang and Nanchang-Fuzhou, and plans to formulate a new round of development plans for Nanchang Metropolitan Area.

In other words, after the provincial capital is strengthened, how to form industrial division of labor, infrastructure connection and public service sharing with surrounding cities has become an important part of Jiangxi's implementation of the "strong provincial capital" strategy.

Shijiazhuang's changes are equally obvious.

This year, Hebei proposed to accelerate the construction of Shijiazhuang Metropolitan Area, making it clear that Shijiazhuang should give full play to the leading driving role of the central city, and strengthen ties with surrounding cities through interconnected infrastructure, industrial cooperation zones, adjacent area cooperation parks, two-way science and technology innovation "enclaves" and other methods. Shijiazhuang Metropolitan Area has also specially promoted the work of transportation integration this year, with the goal of making commuting between cities easier and industrial collaboration more convenient.

Behind this is actually an expansion of the connotation of "strong provincial capital". In the past, when talking about strong provincial capitals, the most visible indicators were GDP, industrial scale, urban construction and other indicators. These are still important now, but what needs to be observed to evaluate whether a provincial capital can really play its role is increasing.

For example, scientific and technological innovation and industrial upgrading have been placed in a more prominent position.

This year, Shijiazhuang proposed to develop new quality productive forces, promote the in-depth integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, build an important pivot city of the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center, and lay out emerging and future industries such as bio-manufacturing, aerospace information, and low-altitude economy. This year, Lanzhou promoted the strong provincial capital action, also taking new quality productive forces as an important direction, requiring in-depth integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, and incorporating county-level economy and development zone economy into the strong provincial capital action.

At the same time, "strong provincial capital" no longer means that all resources are concentrated in one city.

More and more provinces have begun to integrate metropolitan areas, urban agglomerations and multi-center development into the same set of regional layout. Shandong continued to implement the "strong provincial capital" strategy this year, and at the same time proposed to enhance the radiation driving capacity of Jinan and Qingdao metropolitan areas; Hubei strengthened regional pivots such as Xiangyang-Yichang beyond the provincial capital; Sichuan is also promoting cities beyond Chengdu to improve their development capacity.

Provincial capitals are still important growth poles, but "strengthening the provincial capital" is shifting from expanding a single city to enhancing the connection between the provincial capital and surrounding cities. Industrial division of labor, innovation collaboration, transportation connection and public service sharing have become the contents that many places attach more and more importance to when promoting the strong provincial capital strategy.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Du Cheng Ji Studio", author: Li Hang, published with authorization from 36Kr.