Chinese late imperial urban civilization was made up of loose regional economies with a few large cities supported by lots of market towns. The Grand Canal remained its backbone, and China’s most prosperous cities were distributed along its length, and international maritime connections to the early modern global economy saw the growth of the Pearl River Delta. Elsewhere defence was important. Ming Dynasty coastal cities faced threats from pirates. Then as the Qing Dynasty expanded into the northwest, cities in the new province of Xinjiang developed around military garrisons. Walls remained a primary characteristic of Chinese urban form, and they surrounded large commercial and administrative cities, as well as those built for defensive purposes. All cities were now governed by a mixture of state and private interests, including the newly established merchant societies. The Ming and Qing Dynasties saw the flowering of late imperial urban culture. The cities of the Lower Yangzi Delta set the standards of style and taste, but the movement of gentry, merchants, and other urban residents brought this urban culture to the farthest corners of the empire. They produced travel guides, urban histories, prose, and poetry that recorded all aspects of urban life in minute detail.

During the Tang-Song transition, urbanization created regionally distinct hierarchical networks of large and small cities, market towns, and villages, which were closely connected in complex economic, social, and political relationships. The Lower Yangzi Delta was the most urbanized region of China, and remained linked to northern capitals via the Grand Canal. Within Chinese capitals, emperors, aristocrats, and officials remained enclosed within palace and imperial cities. Outside, the ward system broke down, and in many smaller cities there were no walls at all. Now commerce could be found along every street, and it also brought new forms of social organization and governance. Merchants organized different trades into guilds and took their place alongside the state and religious institutions in governing urban life. In capital cities, imperial families continued to assert their symbolic right to rule through participation in now well-established rituals. Elsewhere, people from all social classes were more invested in the urban life of their city, and distinct urban cultures emerged. Local gentry wrote urban histories and guides, bought and sold property, and invested in businesses or religious institutions. They describe lives of urban men and women in levels of detail that do not exist for earlier eras.