A dataset of the smart governance index for Chinese cities

Why smarter city hall matters to everyday life

From traffic jams and air pollution to online public services, many city problems are now shaped by digital tools. But it has been hard to tell which "smart city" projects actually improve daily life and which are just slogans. This article introduces a new way to measure how well hundreds of Chinese cities are using data and technology to govern, offering clues that can help cities worldwide avoid costly mistakes and learn from places that are getting it right.

Taking the pulse of smart city government

The researchers built a Smart Governance Index that scores 296 Chinese cities from 2017 to 2023. Instead of looking only at gadgets or internet speed, the index asks three basic questions: What goals does the city pursue, such as cleaner air or fairer services; how widely are smart tools used in everyday services like transport, health, or tourism; and how strong are the rules, staff skills, and networks behind the scenes. By blending these strands, the index moves beyond buzzwords to show how digital ideas are actually woven into city hall and into residents' lives.

From online posts to power grids

To answer these questions, the team stitched together a vast mix of data sources. They analyzed search trends and social media activity to track citizen voice, pulled official economic and environmental statistics, and drew on sector databases for e-commerce, industrial internet platforms, smart tourism, and digital welfare programs. They also measured policy documents, government transparency, telecom coverage, patents, and human skills. Statistical methods then cleaned gaps in the data and combined dozens of indicators into comparable scores for each city and for each of the three main dimensions of smart governance.

How the scores were built

Because some indicators naturally have higher or lower values than others, the authors first scaled everything to a common range so that cities could be fairly compared across time and space. They then used a weighting method that gives more influence to indicators which differ a lot between cities, because those carry more information about who is leading and who is lagging. Finally, a ranking technique compared each city to a "best" and "worst" possible case, yielding an overall score and three sub-scores. Tests with alternative settings showed that the rankings barely changed, suggesting that the index is stable rather than a fragile result of one particular formula.

What the numbers say about China’s cities

Across China, smart governance rose only slowly over seven years, with three phases: a quiet start, a burst of growth as new programs took hold, and then a leveling off. The strongest gains came in the hidden foundations of digital government, such as rules, standards, and technical capacity. By contrast, progress in applying smart tools to everyday services was much more modest, hinting that many cities have built digital hardware but still struggle to turn it into better outcomes for residents. There are also sharp divides: large coastal cities, national-level municipalities, and big urban clusters score far higher than smaller inland cities, and in some cases the gap is widening.

Why this matters beyond China

The study underlines that smarter government is not just about buying technology. Cities that perform best combine clear public goals, well designed digital services, and solid institutions that can adapt over time. The dataset, which is openly available and updated each year, gives researchers and officials a tool to track progress, learn from peers, and design policies that match local realities. For readers and city residents, the key message is that digital projects improve urban life only when they are backed by fair rules, capable staff, and attention to who benefits, helping ensure that smart cities are also inclusive and sustainable.

Citation: Song, L., He, Z., Pan, Y. et al. A dataset of the smart governance index for Chinese cities. Sci Data 13, 724 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06510-7

Keywords: smart governance, Chinese cities, digital government, urban data, smart city index