The Yangtze River Delta region, a major economic powerhouse in China, has seen its total GDP surpass that of Japan, the world's fourth-largest economy.

The combined GDP of Shanghai and the three provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui reached 34.66 trillion yuan ($5.06 trillion) in 2025. By comparison, Japan's nominal GDP stood at $4.28 trillion in 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Over the past five years, the region's cumulative GDP growth exceeded 7 trillion yuan, roughly equivalent to the economic scale of a mid-sized Chinese province.

The YRD region is now home to 10 cities whose GDP has crossed the 1 trillion yuan threshold: Shanghai; Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi, Changzhou, and Nantong in Jiangsu province; Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Wenzhou in Zhejiang province; and Hefei in Anhui province.

Total exports from the region reached 10.85 trillion yuan in 2025, accounting for 40.2 percent of China's overall exports.

Companies based in the YRD region account for 48 percent of all listings on China's Science and Technology Innovation Board, also known as the STAR Market, underscoring the region's role as a key engine of China's economic growth.

Source: Shanghai Observer