Two volunteers are seen in Deqing county, Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: huzhoufabu]

Huzhou's Deqing county retained its laurel as a national civilized city and scored the highest among the 134 county-level civilized cities in China in 2021, according to a notice recently released by the Office of the Central Spiritual Civilization Development Steering Commission.

The National Civilized City award, given out every three years, is the highest honor a Chinese city can achieve.

The county's high civilized level is reflected in areas including city sanitation and volunteer services.

In 2020, Deqing was rated as "excellent" in a provincial assessment for garbage sorting in rural areas in Zhejiang.

Presently, the county is home to more than 300 volunteer service organizations and nearly 140,000 registered volunteers, accounting for 21 percent of its total population.