The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province has been included in Oriental Outlook magazine's annual ranking of the 10 happiest cities in China.

Oriental Outlook works with the Liaowang Think Tank to perform research for the ranking through big data collection, questionnaire survey, field research and expert review. This is the 14th consecutive year that the ranking has been published.

Qingdao is a beautiful coastal city with a vibrant economy, and excels in the fields of financing, marine economy and environmental protection. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Chengdu, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Changsha, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Xining and Xi'an also made the list.

"Qingdao has always been a frontier of China's opening up and a top destination for investment and global talent. In the overall evaluation, the city's indicators of people's livelihoods, such as education and medical care, are quite prominent," said Gu Jiayun, editorial board member of Oriental Outlook, adding that the city has launched a series of measures to make life easier for local residents.

The city has launched a campaign to strengthen communication with the public in an effort to better serve the people, said Gu.

Gu added that Qingdao has also performed well in helping local enterprises resume work amid the pandemic

"As an important central coastal and an international port city, Qingdao ranks first in terms of quality of life, urban attraction and educational resources," said Dou Dejing, head of the Big Data Lab at the Baidu Research Institute.