A Different Scale

At times it’s really unimaginable how many people live here in China. For example, this week Scott traveled to the northwest city of Yulin (basically almost to Inner Mongolia). The “metropolitan area” of Yulin has approximately 3.6 million people – which is considerably larger than Dallas-Fort Worth. He had to fly to another city from Shanghai and connect to a 32 seat regional jet because that is the only way to get there. Upon arriving, he walked off the plane (which just stopped at the end of the runway) and observed the following:

• The runway resembled a really large church parking lot
• There was no building to go into - just a rusty gate to walk through about 20 yards from the plane
• They did have Baggage Claim. It consisted of a guy in an Isuzu pickup pulling up and everyone just grabbing his/her luggage.
  

After this experience, coupled with other travels, Scott has created a new categorization for places in China:

“Collection” of more 15 million people = Big City
“Collection” of more than 10 but less than 15 million = City
“Collection” of more than 5 but less than 10 million = Town
“Collection” of more than 1 but less than 5 million = Small Village
“Collection” of less than 1 million people = Farming Community or Fishing Neighborhood