Ningbo again ranked among China's happiest cities

The first fully automated train in East China's Zhejiang province makes its debut in Ningbo on June 29. [Photo/Ningbo Evening News]

Ningbo was included in Oriental Outlook magazine's 2021 ranking of the happiest cities in China, according to a forum held in Beijing on Dec 30.

The city was ranked third, behind Chengdu and Hangzhou, among provincial capitals and cities with independent planning status nationwide, the same as the previous year.

This is the 12th time the city has made the rankings.

The ranking was compiled by Oriental Outlook and Liaowang Think Tank based on big data, questionnaires, field researches and expert reviews.

During the past five months, 2.38 million questionnaires were collected by the organizers.

Ningbo's three administrative areas - Yinzhou district and the county-level city of Yuyao and Cixi - were listed among the happiest county-level cities (districts) in the nation. 

Ningbo is located in southeastern part of East China's Zhejiang province and the southern wing of the Yangtze River Delta region.

It has a permanent population of 9.404 million, according to the seventh national census released by the National Bureau of Statistics in May.

The city’s gross domestic product (GDP) totaled 1.24087 trillion yuan ($190.9 billion) in 2020, a yearly uptick of 3.3 percent, according to preliminary statistics released by the Ningbo Bureau of Statistics in January.