(Yicai Global) June 5 -- Hong Kong ranked as the fifth most influential city in the world, while China's mainland cities of Beijing and Shanghai were included in the top 20 in a study from a US consulting firm, which measured various factors from business environment to cultural development.

Beijing was selected as the ninth while Shanghai was the 19th in A.T. Kearney's list which ranked 135 world cities according to 27 criteria including business environment, human resources, and information exchange. The top three most influential cities this year were New York, London, and Paris.

The number of Chinese cities has more than tripled to 27 this year from 7 in 2008, while the increase is closely related to efforts by national, regional and local organs to improve the country's competitiveness, analysts said. Chinese cities also outperformed their equivalents in other countries in terms of development potential in the past four years.

China is the world-leader in the R&D of smart city pilots, and houses about half of all 1,000 such pilots, according to UK auditing firm Deloitte. Smart cities aim to utilize technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things in the fields of public governance and transport to ease congestion and to boost effectivity.

China also has the second-fastest increasing urban population, according to data from the United Nations. Shanghai is currently the third-largest city in the world with its 26 million residents, but planned late last year to cap permanent residence at 25 million by 2035, a move experts see as unfeasible. Beijing had earlier planned to cap its population at 23 million by 2030.

Editor: Emmi Laine