A prefecture-level city ( ) or prefecture-level municipality is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China, ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. Prefecture-level cities form the second level of the administrative structure (alongside prefectures, leagues and autonomous prefectures). Since the 1980s, prefecture-level cities have mostly replaced the prefecture administrative unit.

A prefecture-level city is not a "city" in the strictest sense of the term, but instead an administrative unit comprising, typically, both an urban core (a city in the strict sense) and surrounding rural or less-urbanized areas usually many times the size of the central, built-up core. Prefecture-level cities nearly always contain multiple counties, county-level cities, and other such sub-divisions. This results from the fact that the formerly predominant prefectures, which prefecture-level cities have mostly replaced, were themselves large administrative units containing cities, smaller towns, and rural areas. To distinguish a prefecture-level city from its actual urban area (city in the strict sense), the term 市区 shìqū ("urban area"), is used.

The first prefecture-level cities were created on 5 November, 1983. Over the following two decades, prefecture-level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefectures; the process is still ongoing.

Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefecture-level cities. Of the 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions of China, only 3 provinces (Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai) and 2 autonomous regions (Xinjiang, Tibet) have more than three second-level or prefecture-level divisions that are not prefecture-level cities.

Criteria that a prefecture of China must meet to become a prefecture-level city:

• An urban centre with a non-rural population over 250,000
• gross output of value of industry of 200,000,000 RMB
• the output of tertiary industry supersedes that of primary industry
• Over 35% of the GDP

Baoding (Hebei Province), Zhoukou (Henan), Nanyang (Henan), and Linyi (Shandong) are the largest prefecture-level cities, exceeding the population of Tianjin, the least populous municipality.

15 large prefecture-level cities have been granted the status of sub-provincial city, which gives them much greater autonomy.

A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities.