Harbin – capital of China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province – regained the honorary title of "National Civilized City" on Aug 21, according to Harbin Daily.

In China, a national civilized city refers to a metropolis with a relatively high level of urban infrastructure, whose residents enjoy a high quality of life.

The title of National Civilized City is the highest honor granted by the Office of the National Steering Committee for Ethical and Cultural Progress, which monitors the overall level of conditions in cities.

Harbin won the honorary title of National Civilized City in 2015, and then won it again in 2017.

However, due to the outbreak of a serious fire on Aug 25, 2018, Harbin city was excluded from the honorary title list.

Over the past two years, Harbin has made every effort to make progress in its “civilized city” campaign by upgrading its various public amenities and infrastructure and improving its citizens’ overall standard of living.

In 2019, more than 20,000 illegally constructed sites in Harbin, with a total area of 4 million square meters, were demolished.

That same year, some 102 kilometers of Harbin’s old urban pipelines were renovated and 200 km of new urban roads were constructed. Officials said the number of newly-constructed parking lots in Harbin city reached 61,000, and the efficient treatment rate of domestic garbage in urban areas reached 100 percent.

In 2019, Harbin recorded 304 days with air quality rated good to excellent.

Meanwhile, Harbin city is making things better for its residents by improving its government services through the use of big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies.
 
In the overall online services capability index rankings of 32 key cities nationwide in 2019, Harbin jumped from tenth in 2018 to a nationwide ranking of sixth.