city
HSK level
城市 is written with 14 strokes (城: 9, 市: 5). The animation replays automatically.
城市 (chéngshì) is the Chinese word for 'city' — an urban settlement, as opposed to a village or countryside area.
It applies to anything from a small prefecture-level city to a megacity like Beijing or Shanghai. The character 城 originally meant 'city wall,' a reminder that ancient Chinese cities were defined by their fortifications, while 市 meant 'market' — together, the walled-and-marketed place where people lived and traded. Two notes for English speakers: first, 城市 is the neutral category noun ('what kind of place is it?
a city'), while specific city names take 市 as a suffix (北京市, 上海市). Second, 城市 contrasts with 农村 (nóngcūn, countryside/rural area), and this urban–rural pair is a major social and economic theme in modern China.
Character by character
Memory hook: 城 (walled city) + 市 (market) = a walled place where markets gather — the original idea of a city.
城市 appears in 15 Fluentide podcast episodes at natural native speed — each with the full Chinese script, pinyin, and line-by-line English translation.
北京是一座很大的城市。
Běijīng shì yí zuò hěn dà de chéngshì.
Beijing is a very big city.
neutral
我喜欢住在小城市。
Wǒ xǐhuan zhù zài xiǎo chéngshì.
I like living in a small city.
spoken
这个城市的交通很方便。
Zhège chéngshì de jiāotōng hěn fāngbiàn.
Transportation in this city is very convenient.
neutral
你去过哪些中国的城市？
Nǐ qù guo nǎxiē Zhōngguó de chéngshì?
Which Chinese cities have you been to?
spoken
都市 is more literary and implies a metropolis — bright lights, fashion, modern life (都市生活, 都市女性). 城市 is the everyday neutral word covering all cities, big and small.
市 as a suffix names a specific administrative city (北京市, 广州市). 城市 is the general noun for 'a city' as a type of place. You wouldn't say '我住在城市' to name your city — you'd name the specific 市.
Acquire it by listening
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