New-style Chinese vehicle registration plates have a Chinese character for the province (listed below), followed by a letter for the region or county (always A for the main town), and then the registration number.

Old-style Chinese vehicle registration plates have a group of Chinese characters (which can't be rendered here) at the top, indicating the city or province of registration (followed here by their main towns to aid location):

•   - Anhui (Hefei)
•   - Beijing/Peking
•   - Chongqing
•   - Fujian (Fuzhou)
•   - Gansu (Lanzhou)
•   - Guangdong/Canton (Guangzhou/Canton)
•   - Guanxi-Zhuang (Nanning)
•   - Guizhou (Guiyang)
•   - Hainan (Haikou)
•   - Hebei (Shijiazhuang)
•   - Heilongjiang (Harbin)
•   - Henan (Zhengzhou)
•   - Hubei (Wuhan)
•   - Hunan (Changsha)
•   - Inner Mongolia (Nei Mongol) (Hohhot)
•   - Jiangsu (Nanjing/Nanking)
•   - Jiangxi (Nanchang)
•   - Jilin (Changchun)
•   - Liaoning (Shenyang/Mukden)
•   - Ningxia-Hui (Yinchuan)
•   - Qinghai (Xining)
•   - Shaanxi (Xian)
•   - Shandong (Jinan)
•   - Shanghai
•   - Shanxi (Taiyuan)
•   - Sichuan (Chengdu)
•   - Tianjin/Tientsin
•   - Tibet (Lhasa)
•   - Xinjiang Uygur (Ürümqi)
•   - Yunnan (Kunming)
•   - Zhejiang (Hangzhou)