Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province topped a list of Chinese cities with highest development potential in 2019, Sina Finance reported on Wednesday.

China's capital city Beijing and financial center Shanghai grabbed the second and third spots on this year's list, followed by Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong province.

Other Chinese cities obtaining places on the list include Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan province, Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province, Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, Chongqing in Southwest China, Tianjin in North China and Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang province.

The population continued to flood into first- and second-tier cities with prominent industrial foundations and development potential. These cities, especially Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, take a leading role in industrial innovation, hosting 70 percent of the country's listed companies and obtaining 75 percent of granted invention patents in the country.

The absolute purchasing power in first and second-tier cities outweighed other cities, creating a wide disparity. In 2017, savings deposits from both urban and rural residents in first- and second-tier cities was 115,000 yuan ($16,164) and 66,000 yuan, respectively. Third- and fourth-tier cities had, by contrast, only 41,000 and 32,000 yuan.

With 13 percent of the country's land, the 100 Chinese cities with highest development potential attracted 50 percent of the population in 2019, created 73 percent of GDP and took up 62 percent of China's commercial housing sales, the report said.