1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
China
Compare this sourced profile of Zhaotong, China before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Zhaotong—787,845, Asia/Shanghai, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: prefecture-level city in Yunnan, China.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Zhaotong is GeoNames ID 1784841. Its recorded administrative path is Zhaotong Shi → Yunnan → China, and GeoNames classifies the place as a populated place. Zhaotong occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2021-10-19; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Zhaotong ranks 705 by recorded population. Inside the 296 selected China entries it ranks 212; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 402. Its 787,845 population value is 0.68 times the 1,165,375 median for the country cohort and 0.78 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Zhaotong sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected China entries. Zhaotong's recorded value is materially below the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Zhaotong's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Liupanshui at 136.742 km with 1,320,825 recorded people; Bijie at 155.086 km with 1,137,383 recorded people; Xichang at 157.038 km with 481,796 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 20.296 km. Compared with Liupanshui, Zhaotong's recorded population is 0.60 times as large. Against Zhaotong, Liupanshui follows Lupanshui Shi → Guizhou → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries the same populated place class. Its recorded population is above Zhaotong's. Against Zhaotong, Bijie follows Bijie Diqu → Guizhou → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries second-order administrative seat rather than populated place. Its recorded population is above Zhaotong's. Against Zhaotong, Xichang follows Liangshan Yizu Zizhizhou → Sichuan → China in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries second-order administrative seat rather than populated place. Its recorded population is below Zhaotong's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 840 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Zhaotong's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1784841, the coordinate pair 27.3167 / 103.7167, country rank 212 of 296, and neighbor GeoNames 8533133 at 136.742 km bind Zhaotong to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Zhaotong's reference point is 27.3167° north and 103.7167° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Shanghai is shared by 291 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPL is shared by 243 rows. Zhaotong's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Zhaotong's point falls in the lower-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Zhaotong's place-class field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its time zone is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Zhaotong, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Zhaotong's closest other entries in this atlas are Liupanshui (136.742 km), Bijie (155.086 km), Xichang (157.038 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Zhaotong, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2021-10-19; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.