China expects to have a total urban population of 630 million and an urbanization rate of 45 percent by 2010, according to experts and officials with the Ministry of Construction.

Vigorous local economic growth has led to the emergence of cityclusters nationwide, said Chen Xiaoli, director of Urban and RuralDevelopment Planning Department under the Ministry of Construction,here today.

Chen noted that most city clusters are concentrated in the Yangtze and Pearl river deltas in the east and south of the country, on the Liaodong Peninsula in the northeast, and in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region in the north.

Latest statistics show that China had developed 666 cities by the end of 1999, including 32 cities each with a population of over one million. Forty-three cities have a population ranging from 500,000 to one million each, 192 cities have a population of 200,000 to 500,000, and more than 400 small cities have a population under 200,000.

Chen noted that rapid urbanization has to a certain degree improved the uneven distribution of cities between eastern and western China. The former region accounts for 44 percent and the latter 19 percent of the total number of cities.

The fast progress of urbanization in both eastern and western regions has effectively helped improve economic development nationwide, the official added.