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Yangzhou recently won the "Living & Inclusion Award" during the 2025 Regional & China Smart City Awards Ceremony at Tomorrow City Shanghai. This highly prestigious award is commonly regarded as the Oscar of the international smart city field.
The "Living & Inclusion Award" is set up and presented by the committee of Smart City Expo World Congress and certified by esteemed international organizations, including the UN-Habitat and the World Economic Forum. The goal is to honor excellent practices in China's smart city construction, which demonstrate innovation and serve as exemplary models in creating livable urban environments and elevating social inclusiveness.
The 2025 Regional & China Smart City Awards Ceremony takes place at Tomorrow City Shanghai. [Photo/yznews.cn]
During the conference, Yangzhou stood out with its "Digital Empowerment for a Canal City" practice, which sees the city striving to transform itself into a digital intelligence city ideal for both living and visiting.
The "Living & Inclusion Award" trophy. [Photo/yznews.cn]
Yangzhou's digital empowerment is manifested in various aspects.
To build itself into a green and beautiful city, Yangzhou has constructed a smart water conservancy scheduling and decision-making system. Since its trial operation in 2023, the number of urban waterlogging points has decreased by 62 percent.
In the realm of smart and convenient services, Yangzhou has introduced a "diagnosis-first, pay-after" credit-based medical service and an intelligent parking system that provides real-time information on over 500,000 parking spaces across the urban area.
To create a digital-friendly environment, Yangzhou has launched a network construction project, offering free Wi-Fi that covers 90 percent of the downtown area. The city has also signed and initiated a digital fashion community pilot project, aiming to raise the digital economy's contribution to GDP to over 11 percent.
