A blue book by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences listed Guangdong province as the province that faces the highest crisis with its public image, Xinhua reported on Monday.
Beijing and Henan province follow Guangdong in the top three, according to the CASS Report on the Crisis of Public Image 2013-2014.
The report, which maps out the public image crisis for Chinese provincial regions, is a summary of more than 2,000 cases from media reports covering aspects of public safety, social order, eco-environment, public services and governmental officials' performances.
Tang Jun, editor-in-chief of the report and director of Crisis Management Center at Renmin University, told Xinhua that he believes the report is a warning of the risks during the country's fast social transformation by exposing the "ugly".
"We hope to raise more concern on the dilemma in social management, thus to build a better society for everyone," Tang said.