According to an environment assessment report recently released by East China's Zhejiang province, the prefecture-level city of Lishui won hands down in the province – its environment index reading for 2019 at 89.4, up from the previous year's 87.1, local officials said.

That score kept the city top of all the cities in Zhejiang once again, winning it first place for 17 consecutive years.

Officials said the biological abundance index and vegetation cover index for the county-level cities and districts under Lishui's jurisdiction were markedly higher than those of other cities.

In 2019, Lishui recorded 182 days with grade I, or excellent, air quality and 176 days of grade II, or fairly good, air quality and the total number of days in both categories  accounted for 98.1 percent of the whole year.

Officials said its urban air quality ranked seventh among 337 cities at and above prefecture level in China.