Hangzhou is selected to be the second happiest city in China according to an appraisal of 2009 China's Happiest Cities.

Hangzhou

The capital city of east China’s Zhejiang province ranked second in the list for its fine scenery, cheap goods and easy lifestyle. Hebei’s Chengdu topped the list, while Shandong’s seaside city Qingdao ranked the third. Other cities, which listed in Top Ten, included Liaoning’s Dalian, Yunnan’s Kunming, Jiangsu’s Suzhou, Guizhou’s Guilin, Macao, Hong Kong and Yunnan’s Dali.

Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the four biggest cities in China, didn’t make the list due to bad air quality, high housing prices, heavy urban traffic, along with high work and living pressure, the report said.

The election of Happiest City of China is organized by Wangdongfang Weekly of the Xinhua News Agency and the Committee of "China Cities Development Report" run by China Mayors' Association, and it has been run for three times which has been voted by over 200,000 million people. The election has attracted over 1,000 mass media and this is a great promotion for the elected cities.

In August this year, based on the commonly recognized international assessment system of a happy city, the organization committee made a sample survey. This year, the election is larger in range, comprising the county-level cities and the cities directly under the Central Government. The survey results in 100 candidate cities. The 50 district-level and above district-level cities include Hangzhou, Chengdu, Ningbo, Changsha, Xi'an, Kunming, and Qingdao. The 50 candidate cities at the county level include Kunshan, Zhangjiagang, Changshu, Wujiang, Taicang, Shaoxing, Yixing, Fuyang, and Yuyao. With household investigation and public investigation, in October the top ten district-level and above-district-level happiest cities and the top ten county-level happiest cities will be elected and the investigation report will be made by the end of December.

By Xie Fang