Latest Ranking of China's Top 10 Metro Cities!

Recently, the Ministry of Transport released the national urban rail transit operation data for September 2026.

Statistics based on the operating mileage of metro and light rail show that the top 10 cities in China are as follows: Beijing 909 kilometers, Shanghai 881.5 kilometers, Guangzhou 772.6 kilometers, Chengdu 719.5 kilometers, Shenzhen 653.7 kilometers.

The following cities are Wuhan with 596.5 kilometers, Nanjing 556.8 kilometers, Hangzhou 516 kilometers, Chongqing 512.3 kilometers, and Xi'an 404.1 kilometers.

Up to now, the number of cities whose operating mileage of metro and light rail has exceeded 500 kilometers across the country has reached 9! Among them, Beijing and Shanghai firmly occupy the first echelon, Guangzhou and Chengdu follow closely, and Shenzhen steadily ranks the fifth nationwide. However, if we only look at the total amount, we may ignore another more notable change: increment.

If we trace back to the end of 2020 and compare the data with that of September 2026, the ranking will be very interesting.

In the past nearly six years, the top five cities with the largest increment of metro and light rail mileage across the country are: Shenzhen has a net increase of 231.1 kilometers, ranking first nationwide; Guangzhou has a net increase of 219.4 kilometers, ranking second nationwide. Hangzhou has a net increase of 209.7 kilometers, ranking third; Wuhan has a net increase of 187.4 kilometers, ranking fourth; Beijing has a net increase of 182 kilometers, ranking fifth.

In other words, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou have become the leaders of this round of metro expansion. In particular, although Shenzhen's total mileage currently only ranks fifth in the country, its newly added mileage in the past nearly six years ranks first nationwide. Guangzhou also performs outstandingly, with newly added mileage exceeding 219 kilometers, which further widens the gap with the cities behind.

Hangzhou is also a remarkable performer. Its newly added mileage exceeds 200 kilometers in six years, and its urban rail transit extends rapidly from the main urban area to areas such as Xiaoshan, Linping and Qiantang. In addition, Foshan has a net increase of 146.6 kilometers, ranking 14th nationwide, showing a very eye-catching performance among ordinary prefecture-level cities.

Many people are curious about why these cities can build metros faster and faster? The underlying logic can be summed up in one word: people.

The permanent resident population in Shenzhen is growing steadily, and the population in peripheral areas such as Guangming, Longgang and Bao'an is increasing. The commuting demand is rising continuously, and people gather wherever the metro is built.

The permanent resident population in Guangzhou has reached 19.1 million, with an annual increment of 100,000 level. The development of Nansha, Huadu and Huangpu is accelerating. In addition, with the Guangzhou-Foshan urban integration, cross-city rail transit must keep pace.

With the expansion of Hangzhou's digital economy, the urban population has exceeded 10 million. A number of metro lines were put into operation intensively around the Asian Games, connecting Linping, Qiantang and Xiaoshan into a unified network.

Looking closely at the list of top 20 cities by mileage increment, the vast majority are provincial capitals, municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities with separate state plans, among which Foshan and Suzhou, two ordinary prefecture-level cities, are particularly eye-catching.

However, behind the prosperity, there is a status quo that cannot be ignored: almost no brand-new metro projects have been approved across the country in the past two years or so, and a large number of cities with the dream of building metros are still waiting in line for approval.

Many people wonder why the construction of metros in various places was in full swing in previous years, but the approval gate has been significantly tightened now.

First, metro projects are "capital-intensive projects", the construction cost of each kilometer often amounts to hundreds of millions of yuan, and there is also a considerable annual operation and maintenance cost after completion. Building a metro has high requirements for financial resources and population: the city applying for metro construction should have a general public budget revenue of more than 30 billion yuan, a gross domestic product of more than 300 billion yuan, and a permanent resident population in the urban area of more than 3 million.

Second, the state has long set a clear passenger flow threshold: the initial passenger intensity of the planned metro shall not be less than 7,000 person-times per kilometer per day, and the long-term passenger flow scale shall reach more than 30,000 person-times per one-way peak hour. To put it simply, whether a metro can be built depends not only on the willingness of the city, but also on factors such as financial resources, urban population, debt risk and passenger flow scale.

If all localities rush to launch metro projects, it will easily increase the pressure on local finance and debt.

Comparing with the passenger intensity data in September 2026, we can find that less than half of the cities with operating metros can reach the baseline of 7,000 person-times per kilometer per day: Shenzhen 1.48, Harbin 1.3, Guangzhou 1.21, Changsha 1.17, Shanghai 1.16, Beijing 1.08, Xi'an 0.99, Chengdu 0.91, Shenyang 0.87, Xiamen 0.86, Hangzhou 0.82, Nanning 0.77, Chongqing 0.76, Hefei 0.73.

This also sounds an alarm for many cities: the metro is not simply a city facade, it is essentially a major infrastructure serving a large number of commuters; long-term insufficient passenger flow, coupled with the annual pressure of operation subsidies, will become a long-term burden for the local government.

Of course, tightened approval does not mean "stopping construction". In the future, cities with continuous inflow of population and solid passenger flow foundation still have the opportunity to build new metro lines.

For many cities looking forward to having metros, instead of rushing to get lines approved, it is better to strengthen industries and retain people first — as long as the population grows and commuting demand rises, building metros will be a matter of time.

This article is from the WeChat official account "City War", the author is Tinghai Moyu, and it is published with authorization from 36Kr.