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I’m finishing up a long project on second-tier Chinese cities for a real estate newsletter, and clearly, I now have second-tier cities on the brain.

CN Reviews posted a list of the Middle Kingdom’s top 30 universities, according to the China Academy of Management Science (h/t China Law Blog), and I couldn’t help count how many were in smaller cities. For purposes of consistency, I’m calling Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen the first tier, and anything else is second-tier or lower. By that standard, two-thirds (20/30) of China’s top 30 campuses are in second-tier cities.

This could be as much a function of there being more (duh) cities in the second tier than the first, but its interesting to watch places once on the fringe rise to become metropolitan centers in their own right. If the universities listed below are indeed the best in the country, it wouldn’t surprise me to see those cities begin to draw more research talent and more high-value investment as their campuses gain notoriety.

Anyway, here’s the list. As all rankings of this sort go, add salt to taste.

1. Tsinghua University: Beijing
2. Beijing University: Beijing
3. Zhejiang University: Hangzhou, Zhejiang
4. Shanghai Jiaotong University: Shanghai
5. Nanjing University: Nanjing, Jiangsu
6. Fudan University: Shanghai
7. University of Science and Technology of China: Hefei, Anhui
8. Huazhong University of Science and Technology:Wuhan, Hubei
9. Wuhan University: Wuhan, Hubei
10. Xi’an Jiaotong University: Xi’an, Shanxi
11. Jilin University: Changchun, Jilin
12. Zhongshan University: Guangzhou, Guangdong
13. Sichuan University: Chengdu, Sichuan
14. Harbin Institute of Technology: Harbin, Heilongjiang
15. Shandong University: Jinan, Shandong
16. Nankai University: Tianjin
17. Tianjin University: Tianjin
18. Beijing Normal University: Beijing
19. Central South University: Changsha, Hunan
20. Southeast University: Nanjing, Jiangsu
21. Xiamen University: Xiamen, Fujian
22. Renmin University: Beijing
23. Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics: Beijing
24. Dalian University of Technology: Dalian, Liaoning
25. Northwest Polytechnical University: Xi’an, Shanxi
26. Tongji University: Shanghai
27. South China University of Technology: Guangzhou, Guangdong
28. Chongqing University: Chongqing
29. East China Normal University: Shanghai
30. Lanzhou University: Lanzhou, Gansu

(For what it’s worth, I studied Chinese at Dalian University of Technology)

Update: I took out the Chinese names for the universities listed, because Wordpress, in its current incarnation, doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. If anyone knows how to fix this…