Recently, YICAI·The Rising Lab officially released the Ranking of New First-Tier Cities' Attractiveness in China 2025.YICAI: China's leading all-media financial information group.

This year's list shows the 15 new first-tier cities as: Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Suzhou, Xi'an, Nanjing, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Tianjin, Hefei, Qingdao, Dongguan, Ningbo, and Foshan. Xi'an maintained its ranking from last year, standing 6th among the 15 new first-tier cities.

The Ranking of New First-Tier Cities' Attractiveness in China 2025 has been released for 10 consecutive years, with Xi'an steadily ranking among the top 10 new first-tier cities in the past five years.

The 2025 New First-tier Cities Charm Ranking comprehensively evaluates cities' efforts and achievements over the past year through five primary dimensions: Commercial Resource Concentration, Urban Hub Connectivity, Urban Vitality, New Economy Competitiveness, and Future Adaptability & Growth Potential.

Xi'an Ranks 9th in Commercial Resource Concentration

Commercial Resource Concentration includes the Big Brand Favorability Index, Commercial Core Index, and Commercial Support Maturity.In 2024, Xi'an's commercial development thrived, marked by a strong first-store economy, the entry of renowned brands, and effective consumption-promotion activities and trade-in programs.

Xi'an Ranks 6th in Urban Hub Connectivity

Urban Hub Connectivity is measured by transportation connectivity, intercity mobility index, industrial collaboration index, and regional centrality of commercial resources.

In 2024, the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) completed 4,985 trips, up 25.1% from the previous year, marking Xi'an as the first city in China to surpass 25,000 cumulative trips. In February 2025, Terminal T5 and the integrated transportation center of Xi'an Xianyang International Airport's third-phase project were completed.

Xi'an Ranks 9th in Urban Vitality

Urban Vitality measures the vibrancy of urban residents in consumption, leisure, and nighttime activities.In 2024, Xi'an's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 491.508 billion yuan, up 2.2% year on year. Additionally, Xi'an's cultural and tourism market remained among the top in China, attracting 306 million visitors and generating 376 billion yuan in tourism revenue in 2024, representing increases of 10.3% and 12.3%, respectively.

Xi'an Ranks 14th in New Economy Competitiveness

New Economy Competitiveness reflects a city's endogenous development momentum, composed of Enterprise Leadership, New Consumption Index, and Industrial Chain Ecology Index. 

In 2024, Xi'an's 15 industrial enterprises with over 10 billion yuan in annual output saw a 10.2% increase in value. The total output of six pillar industries—automobiles, electronic information, high-end equipment, aerospace, new materials and energy, and biomedicine—grew by 4.6%.

Xi'an Ranks 11th in Future Adaptability & Growth Potential

Future Adaptability & Growth Potential includes Innovation Atmosphere Index, Talent Attraction Index, and Urban Scale Index, emphasizing a city's long-term carrying capacity.

Xi'an boasts over 1,400 research institutions, 83 universities, and 69 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Engineering. The city has 1.3 million higher education students and nearly 1 million professional technical personnel, with 448 key laboratories, including 30 national ones. In the 2024 Global Innovation Index, Xi'an ranked 18th globally and 7th in China.