Abstract:The core region always leads in the fast and steady development of a country. The purpose of this paper is to outline the core region of China from the perspective of spatial economic agglomeration by following both the Krugman’s core-periphery model and the manufacturing belt of the United States. Using data for 286 Chinese cities, six leading manufacturing cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Chongqing are compared with regard to their extent of spatial proximity to the nation markets of goods. It is found that Shanghai and Beijing are geographically closer to the national markets than Guangzhou, Xi’an and Chongqing; and Wuhan has the advantage over other five cities in access to the entire national markets. Therefore, Shanghai, Beijing and Changsha, the later being close to and south of Wuhan, are used to define the core region, a triangle-shaped area of 850,000 square kilometers, where there are: 32 manufacturing cities with nearly half the country’s manufacturing sector. Finally, this paper discusses the policy implications of the outlined core region.