Liuyang city in Changsha, Hunan province, was listed among the 2014 Chinese mainland's top 30 county-level cities, released by Forbes China on Dec 17, Changsha Evening News reported.

Ranking 28th, Liuyang is the only city from Central China that stepped onto the list this year. It's also the first time that a city from Hunan province has made it to the list, since the launch of this Forbes list six years ago.

Kunshan, Jingyin, Changshu, and Zhangjiagang from Jiangsu province, and Yiwu from Zhejiang province took up the top five places on the list.

Forbes introduced the 2014 ranking by assessing eight indexes such as skilled personnel, urban scale, consumptive power, passenger transport, freight transport, vibrancy of private economy, operating cost, and innovation.