Looking globally, how people generally see wealth and poverty might not be accurate; this is especially true considering their long-established impressions, the inaccuracy could very well be quite huge. The following is the statistics of China's GDP per capita and income per capita as wealth indicators:

Many would think that the richer regions among China's 31 provinces and municipalities are mainly concentrated in the southeast coast. From a general perspective, this is quite true, but Tianjin, the municipality directly under the central government, is China's wealthiest city, which may surprise many people. As a matter of fact, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Beijing accounted for the top three in China's most affluent cities and belonged to the first rank in China. The coastal and Inner Mongolia are the second rank, while the northeastern region and the provinces with less population in the interior (such as Shaanxi, Hubei, and Ningxia) are the areas where the Chinese average is located.

Guangdong is generally thought to be affluent, but the actual statistics do not support this at all. Guangdong's GDP per capita ranks only the eighth in China, not even higher than Fujian. Although it has two major first-tier cities, namely Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the overall average has been pulled down because of the large gap in development within the region.

Looking around the world, the most well-known regions in many countries are not necessarily having the highest income. Australia and Canada are two rather astonishing places; their richest areas are places where there are fewer populations and abundant natural resources.

Canada's wealthiest region is neither Ontario nor Quebec, which are the developed areas close to the United States and have higher household incomes. Conversely, Canada's northwestern regions like Yukon and Alberta are unexpectedly the richest areas of the country. The two highest-income areas in Canada are mainly attributed to their sparse populations and rich minerals, all of which are mining centers in Canada. Similar to Canada, the regions with the largest cities such as Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane are not its highest income regions, but rather the glory goes to Western Australia.

It is equally interesting to look at things from an industrial perspective.

Tourism can make certain parts of a country rich, this is something that has been proven by development results. For example, Thailand relies heavily on the capital brought by the tourism industry, and the economy in the areas where tourism is well-developed would be blossoming as well compare with other regions in Thailand; this shows the driving role and the value of the tourism industry. Another interesting discovery is concerning the IT industry. The regions related to the IT industry will see more concentrated economy and wealth, which means generally these are the richer regions. Lyon in France, situated in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, is renowned for its diverse industrial development; one can see Schneider Electric, commercial textiles and IT industry there. The same situation exists in Japan. The great thing about the IT industry is that it will bring hope and easy accumulation of capital, so it can make the region the richest one in the country, examples would be Guangdong in China, Seoul in Korea, and some areas in France and Germany.

Another feature of the industry is that a single-industry city, which maintains its vitality. In South Korea, for example, there are only three areas having GDP per capita higher than the national average in South Korea in 2014, which includes Ulsan, Seoul, and Busan; the rest are below the average. The first city in South Korea's economic development, Ulsan City, is the base of Hyundai Motor, while the second Seoul is the homeland of Samsung, while Busan enjoys the reputation as South Korea's Hong Kong, the largest port in Korea with the largest shipbuilding industry.

From the perspective of income, China's current income per capita is not comparable to that of developed countries. Except for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, Tianjin, the region with the highest accumulation of wealth is only RMB 108,000 per year, similar with the average income level of Akita Prefecture in Japan, which is also the half of London's average. Even the lowest average income region in the United States is highest than this first-place region in China.

Final analysis conclusion:

To sum up, the poorest areas in China are Yunan, Guizhou, and Gansu, while the richest are Tianjin, Beijing, and Shanghai. China's GDP per capita is more than US$ 8,000, but in the region poorest Gansu, it is only US$ 4,200. In China, the average income of working in the richest province for three months is equal to one year's income in the poorest province for one year. This does not just happen in China; it is the same in Germany. What is surprising is that Germany is the most unbalanced country in the developed world because of the unification of East and West Germany.