Shenyang in Northeast China’s Liaoning province was named among the top five most sustainably developed cities in a report released by the United Nations Development Programme, Xinhua reported on Dec 5.

The report, entitled the 2016 Report on China’s Urban Sustainable Development: Measuring Ecological Inputs and Human Development, rated 35 large and medium-sized Chinese cities.

Guangzhou, Beijing, and Nanjing have claimed their respective ranks as China's top three most sustainably developed cities, according to the human development index report. Shenyang ranked fourth among the 35 cities, followed by Shenzhen and Shanghai.

The report is based on the human development index, which was proposed by the United Nations Development Programme in 1990. The human development index, which measures a country’s average life expectancy, years of education, and gross domestic product (GDP), is used to assess a human population’s general welfare level.

Shenyang highlights its education index among all the cities, which ranked first.

Shenyang citizens’ cultural qualities have improved significantly in the last few years. According to the sixth national population census figures launched by the National Bureau of Statistics, as of February 2016, more than 1.65 million people in Shenyang have received higher education; about 1.27 million people finished senior high school; and the average education years of Shenyang’s adult citizens has improved from 9.3 years in 2000 to 10.4 years.

However, there is still a distance to go to improve Shenyang citizens’ life expectancy and income compared with those of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.