Southern cities beat northern region in GDP growth rate

China's regional GDP data recorded uneven growth last year, with the southern region posting faster growth rate than northern region, according to the 21st Century Economic Institute.

So far, most of Chinese cities have released their GDP for the last year. A total of 12 cities saw their GDP figures exceed one trillion yuan ($145 billion) last year.

Shanghai's GDP, after growing at 6.8 percent over the whole year, stood at 2.75 trillion yuan and took the top spot. It outpaced the country's 6.7 percent GDP growth but was slightly lower than the 6.9 percent increase in the previous year.

Beijing's GDP reached 2.49 trillion yuan in 2016, with a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year, ranking second.

The other 10 cities on the list are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Chongqing, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Qingdao.

Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, and Qingdao in East China's Shandong province also broke the one trillion-yuan mark for the first time last year.

In terms of GDP growth rate, China's southwestern municipality of Chongqing posted the fastest economic growth of 10.7 percent in 2016, while Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning province, recorded the lowest growth of 3 percent.

According to the 21st Century Economic Institute, the northern cities' GDP growth rates were lower than that of southern region.

In terms of nominal GDP growth rate, only one (Zhengzhou) in the top 10 cities belongs to the northern region, while two (Ningbo and Suzhou) of the 10 cities posting slowest growth belong to southern region, the institute added.