Administrative division codes of the People’s Republic of China identify administrative divisions of the PRC at county level and above. They are published by the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China with the latest version issued on October 31, 2011. Metadata
The term Prefectures, or the more formal prefectural level divisions, in the context of China, is used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. Other than provincial level divisions, prefectural level divisions are not mentioned in the Chinese constitution. The prefectural government (Chinese: 行政公署; pinyin: xíngzhèng gōngshǔ) is an administrative branch office with the rank of a national ministerial department.
A province (shěng), formally provincial level division, is the highest-level Chinese administrative division. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions, 2 Special Administrative Regions, and the claimed Taiwan Province.
Village or Village level divisions in China serves as a fundamental organizational unit for its rural population (census, mail system). Basic local divisions like neighborhoods and communities are not informal like in the West, but have defined boundaries and designated heads (one per area). In 2000, China’s densely populated villages (>100 persons/square km) had a population greater than 500 million and covered more than 2 million square kilometers, or more than 20% of China
Townships (Chinese: 乡; pinyin: Xiāng) formally township level divisions (Chinese: 乡级行政区) is the basic level (fourth-level administrative units) of political divisions in China. They are similar to municipalities and communes in other countries and in turn may contain village committees and villages. In 1995 there were 29,502 townships and 17,532 towns (a total of 47,034 township-level divisions) in China.