Over the past century China has been transforming from a rural to an urban economy. In the course of this transition, significant regional variations have emerged in urban growth, with a gap forming between coastal and inland areas. This report focuses on Chinas metropolitan regions: Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong which are the most socioeconomically advanced regions in China. It is the first outcome of the joint IIASA and Beijing University project on "Regional Urbanization and Human Capital Projections for China," which focuses on demographic matters, and it will analyze the following major issues: What factors have contributed to the growth of Chinas metropolitan areas over the last two decades? What specific urbanization patterns occur in the transformation from a rural to an urban economy? How does demography drive the speed of urbanization, in particular, in the metropolitan areas? How is IIASAs multistate method used for urbanization projections and what are its advantages and disadvantages? What challenges will China face in the near future as a result of rapid metropolitan growth? This paper suggests that the growth of Chinese mega-urban regions will have knock-on effects at the global level in the medium term
