(Yicai Global) July 20 -- A quarter of the 100 Chinese counties with the biggest economic output are in eastern Jiangsu province, part of the Yangtze River Delta economic hub and adjacent to Shanghai, according to a recent ranking.

Six of the top ten counties on the list are in Jiangsu, including the top four, according to the 2022 Top 100 Counties list released by consultancy firm CCID Consulting today. Kunshan, Jiangyin and Zhangjiagang head the list.

Neighboring Zhejiang province had the second-most inclusions at 18, followed by eastern Shandong province with 13, the report said.

Sixty-five counties that made the list are in provinces along the country’s economically developed eastern coast, 22 are in central areas, 10 in the west of the country and only three in the northeast, the report said.

With just 2 percent of the land and 7 percent of the population, these 100 counties accounted for 9.9 percent of China’s gross domestic product at CNY7 trillion (USD1 trillion) last year, the report said. And 43 of them had an output of more than CNY100 billion (USD14.8 billion) each.

They also accounted for a quarter of the economic output of all county-level areas, despite holding only 3 percent of the land and 11 percent of the population of these areas.

The value added of industries above a designated size in these 100 counties reached 14 percent last year, far above the average growth of 9.6 percent logged by the country’s 31 provincial-level areas and higher than the provinces that they are located in. Zhejiang’s value added grew at a rate of 12.9 percent, Jiangsu by 12.8 percent, Shandong by 9.6 percent and Guangdong by 9 percent.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor