Townships of China in the context of "Guiyang Commandery"

The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is the principal civilian intelligence and security service of the People's Republic of China, responsible for foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and political security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). One of the largest and most secretive intelligence organizations in the world, it maintains powerful semi-autonomous branches at the provincial, city, municipality and township levels throughout China. The ministry's headquarters, Yidongyuan, is a large compound in Beijing's Haidian district.

The origins of the MSS date to the beginnings of the CCP's Central Special Branch, replaced by the Central Committee Society Department from 1936 through the proclamation of the People's Republic in 1949. In 1955, the department was replaced with the Central Committee Investigation Department, which existed in various configurations through the Cultural Revolution to 1983, when it was merged with counterintelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to form the MSS.

The industrial sector comprised 36.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the People's Republic of China in 2024. China is the world's leading manufacturer of chemical fertilizers, cement and steel. Prior to 1978, most output was produced by state-owned enterprises. As a result of the economic reforms that followed, there was a significant increase in production by enterprises sponsored by local governments, especially townships and villages, and, increasingly, by private entrepreneurs and foreign investors, but by 1990 the state sector accounted for about 70 percent of output. By 2002 the share in gross industrial output by state-owned and state-holding industries had decreased with the state-run enterprises themselves accounting for 46 percent of China's industrial output. In November, 2012 the State Council mandated a "social risk assessment" for all major industrial projects. This requirement followed mass public protests in some locations for planned projects or expansions.

When referring to political divisions of China, town is the standard English translation of the Chinese 镇 (traditional: 鎮; pinyin: zhèn; Wade–Giles: chen). The Constitution of the People's Republic of China classifies towns as fourth-level administrative units, along with, for example, townships (Chinese: 乡; pinyin: xiāng). A township is typically smaller in population and more remote than a town.

Similar to higher-level administrative units, the borders of a town would typically include an urban core (a small town with the population on the order of 10,000 people), as well as a rural area with some villages (村; cūn, or 庄; zhuāng).

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is divided into 2,854 county-level divisions which rank below prefectures/provinces and above townships as the third-level administrative division in the country. Of these, 2,842 are located in territory controlled by the PRC, while 172 are located in land controlled by the Republic of China (ROC).

There are six types of county-level divisions:

A subdistrict (Chinese: 街道 / 街; pinyin: jiēdào / jiē; lit. 'streets and avenues / streets') is one of the smaller administrative divisions of China. It is a form of township-level division which is typically part of a larger urban area, as opposed to a discrete town (zhèn, 镇) surrounded by rural areas, or a rural township (xiāng, 乡).

In general, urban areas are divided into subdistricts and a subdistrict is sub-divided into several residential communities or neighbourhoods as well as into villagers' groups (居民区/居住区, 小区/社区, 村民小组).