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Abstract City cluster refers to a considerable number of cities with different qualifies, types and rank scales gathered in a special region. Since the policy of reform and opening-up, with the improvement of urbanizaiton level, the number and scale of city have been expanded to a further step. The city group will play an increasingly prominent role in pulling Chinese economy and a crucial role in the linkage of region development. Currently, the ten-city clusters include Beijing, Tianjin and Ji(Hebei pronvice), the Yangtze Delta, the Zhujiang Delta, Shandong Peninsula, Bei Huan of Bohai Bay and Northwest coast of Huang Hai, Central Plains, the middle reaches of Changjiang River, Westcoast of Straits, Sichuan and Chongqing, etc. And they are becoming the most developed areas in China's economy, science and technology as well as culture. For this reason, reasearch on the comprehensive developing level of the ten-city clusters is of significance. According to the statistic system and data in the paper, stratification planes have been established on the three aspects of total quantity, quality and current capacity, including 41 specific indexes which show the comprehensive development of city clusters at any level. The overall assessment method is adopted to scientifically appraise and compare the development level of the 10-city clusters in China. The findings tell that the integrative development is extremely unbalanced between the East and the Midwest, which indicate the east coast area is advanced while the west is relatively backward. Moreover, Among the ten-city clusters, the Yangtze Delta urban cluster is the most formidable core area of integrated development level, the Zhujiang DeRa urban cluster and Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei urban cluster are the developed area of integrated development level. The three biggest urban clusters are all to be located at the developed area along the eastern coast. However, the integrated development level of the mid-west urban cluster is relatively low. Finally, the author analyzes the discrepancy existing among the ten-city clusters. Meanwhile, some suggestions are put forward in the paper, so as to strengthen the ten-city clusters ability to develop and shorten the development disparity.
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Received: 06 June 2007
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2008, Vol. 23 
