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A county-level city (Chinese: 县级市; pinyin: xiànjí shì) is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are usually governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions.

Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing counties.

County-level cities are not "cities" in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban, built-up area. This is because the counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing towns, villages, and farmland. To distinguish a "county-level city" from its actual urban area (the traditional meaning of the word "city"), the term 市区 shìqū, or "urban area", is used.

Comparable territorial divisions in other countries[link]

In the main urban area of Daye, a county-level city within the prefecture-level city of Huangshi, Hubei. Daye also includes some separate towns, such as Dajipu (大箕铺)

In France, an equivalent of a county-level city is an agglomeration community.

While the idea of a "city" being a unit consisting of several "towns" is not a common one in English-speaking world, a somewhat similar naming convention is used for Local Government Areas in some parts of Australia. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a "city" (rather than a traditional "shire"), and consist of "towns". E.g. City of Blue Mountains is made of a number of towns (Katoomba, Springwood, etc.).

Another example would be "municipal government" in the Canadian province of Ontario. Small municipalities (cities) and towns, along with urban, sub-urban and rural areas were merged or integrated into a "super" area, in part to obtain economies in administrative overhead by not having for each city and town individual library commissions, fire fighting units, health care, and other social services common to all areas. So for example, there has been for less than 10 years the "Municipality of Chatham-Kent" wherein the Corporation of the City of Chatham serves as the "seat" for the newly Chatham-Kent merged municipality. This agglomeration includes all of the "townships" in the county of Kent, with cities and towns like Wallaceberg, Thamesville, Dresden, Wheatley. This "amalgamation" as it is referred to, was controversial when it was essentially "forced" upon the constituents through provincial legislation.

Today, instead of each city having its own mayor and city counsellors, there is a council with representatives from the various areas surrounding Chatham city.

Sub-prefecture-level cities[link]

A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include Taishan (Guangdong), Jiyuan (Henan province), Xiantao (Hubei), and Golmud (Qinghai).

See also[link]

• County (People's Republic of China)
• Prefecture-level city
• Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2008)

For the provincial capital of Henan, People's Republic of China, see Zhengzhou.

Zheng Zhou is an American operatic baritone who has sung at many of the world's finest opera houses. His opera credits include performances with the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Illinois, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Teatro Real, the Philippine Opera Company, and Vancouver Opera to name just a few. His concert work includes performances with the American Composers' Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Colorado Symphony, the China National Symphony, and the Shanghai Symphony among many others.^[1]

Zheng Zhou made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1993 as Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, and later returned to sing Ping in Turandot and Fiorello in Il Barbiere de Siviglia. His San Francisco Opera debut came in 1992 in La Forza del Destino; with that company he has also sung in Milhaud's Christophe Colomb. He sang the roles the Father and Ludovie in Philip Glass' La Belle et la Bete at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and subsequently on tour across the United States, Europe, Mexico and Japan.^[2]

Zhou has become particularly associated with the works of Philip Glass. He appeared in the world premiere of The White Raven in Lisbon in 1998 and reprised his role in Madrid, and in the 2005 U.S. premiere of the opera ifor the opening season of the Lincoln Center Festival with New York City Opera. He has also recorded and performed the role of Abraham Lincoln in Glass' the Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down.

Various reviews agree that Zhou possesses a "rich creamy baritone" (Los Angeles Times) voice, and has excelled with major opera companies and orchestras in a wide range of styles from Mozart, Donizetti and Schubert to Verdi, Mendelssohn and Orff. He has been hailed by the St. Louis Dispatch as "a superior musician", while his performance of Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor led the San Francisco Examiner to exclaim "Zheng Zhou shone. His fiercely concentrated, vocally and theatrically incisive Enrico would have been an asset in any Lucia."^[3] The Opera Quarterly wrote that "Zheng Zhou brings a fine, manly baritone to Lincoln's Verdian utterances" in Glass' The Civil Wars,^[4] while the International Record Review described him as "gloriously full-voiced."^[5]

Mr. Zhou can be heard on his "Art Songs" CD^[6] on Brioso Recordings performing the works of C.P.E. Bach, Hugo Wolf, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Georgy Sviridov; as Abraham Lincoln on Nonesuch Records' recording of Philip Glass' The Civil Wars;^[7] as Ludovic on Nonesuch Records' recording of Philip Glass' La Belle et la Bete;^[8] as the baritone soloist in Johannes Somary's Song of Innocence on Premier Recordings; in Jerrold Fisher's Hosannah on Compact Disc Digital Audio; and in Jason K. Hwang's chamber opera The Floating Box on New World Records.^[9] He has appeared on the San Francisco Opera's Schwabacher Debut Recital Series.^[10]

Mr. Zhou holds degrees from the University of Illinois, St. Louis Conservatory, the Shanghai Conservatory, and a diploma in lieder performance from the Schubert Institute in Vienna.^[11]

References[link]