An aerial view of Taicang, a county-level city in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/WeChat account: tcfbgw]

Taicang, a county-level city in Suzhou, Jiangsu, made Oriental Outlook magazine's annual ranking of the 10 happiest county-level cities in 2020, as announced during the Forum of the Happy Cities of China held in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, on Nov 18.

This is the ninth time that Taicang has received the honor.

The list was compiled by Oriental Outlook magazine and the Liaowang Institute of the Xinhua News Agency, which evaluated cities across the country based on a variety of indexes, including employment, income of residents, natural environment, city appeal, and public safety.

In addition, this year's evaluation also took into account pandemic prevention and control, including general awareness of COVID-19, number of confirmed cases, and progress in resuming work, production and transportation.

Taicang also recently ranked sixth among Chinese county-level cities in terms of business environment on a list compiled by the CCID Consulting, a firm affiliated with a think tank under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.