McDonalds in China

Here's how I spend my time. I'm fascinated by things like the geographical distribution of McDonalds in China. I went to their Chinese website and found their store locator and used it to compile a list of all the cities in China with McDonalds, and then do some of my own statistics on them.
The following is a list of the provinces of China, the number of McDonalds in that province, the number of cities in that province with a McDonalds, the average number of McDonalds per city, the population of that province, and the population per McDonalds.

I think the main takeaway message is that McDonalds has a pretty impressive reach in China.

To illustrate this in map form, I made a map showing every one of the 173 Chinese cities with McDonalds (this is just mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are not included). You can see the map here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthartzell/3903322157/

Not surprisingly, the heaviest concentrations are in and around the three urban megalopolises, Beijing, Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta. However, there's an impressive number in the central provinces as well. By the time you get to Southwest China things are looking more sparse (Kunming is the only city for hundreds of kilometers with a McDonalds). The five Western provinces (Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia), as well as Guizhou (a poor, agricultural province) have no McDonalds at all. But that leaves an impressive 26 provinces that do.

Even more impressive, in my mind, is that the stores are not just found in the provincial capital cities. Within provinces, the spread is pretty wide, with many (relatively) smaller cities featuring a McDonalds, even if there's just one store. McDonalds' corporate strategy seems to be to establish a flagship store in several smaller cities to establish the name and brand, and then to expand within that city later on. Thus, cities like Beijing and Shanghai are already approaching 100 stores, but most of the cities on the list only have 1 or 2. Usually they are located in very central, prominent locations (in keeping with the brand-building strategy).

The columns I added for population and population per McDonalds are pretty interesting.
You'll notice that, with the exception of Guangdong (the most populous province and also the province with the most McDonalds), there is not a strong correlation between provincial population and number of McDonalds. A stronger indicator seems to be proximity to the three major megalopolises, which explains why Zhejiang and Jiangsu, with medium-size populations, are so high on the list. Other highly populous provinces like Shandong, Hunan, and Sichuan don't have nearly as many McDonalds per capita because these provinces are less developed and more rural. On the population per McDonalds scale, the range is huge, from Beijing, with one McDonalds for every 166,000 people, to Jiangxi, whose population of 44 million have just 3 McDonalds.

I apologize that the formatting is ugly. I couldn't seem to insert tabs in between the columns, so the columns don't align perfectly. The numbers you see are, in order:
Province name, number of McDonalds in that province, number of cities in that province with a McDonalds, and population per McDonalds

Guangdong 185 30 510756.76
Beijing 98 1 166632.65
Shanghai 86 1 216046.51
Jiangsu 61 18 1249918.03
Zhejiang 44 17 1150000.00
Fujian 42 11 852619.05
Liaoning 35 4 1228000.00
Hubei 34 6 1676176.47
Tianjin 31 1 359677.42
Shandong 23 11 4072608.70
Hunan 21 9 4457142.86
Sichuan 20 7 4063500.00
Henan 20 11 4680000.00
Hebei 19 10 3654315.79
Anhui 15 10 4078666.67
Shaanxi 12 4 3123333.33
Guangxi 10 6 4768000.00
Heilongjiang 9 3 4248888.89
Chongqing 8 1 3520000.00
Shandong 8 3 4240750.00
Jilin 6 2 4549666.67
Hainan 4 2 2112575.00
Yunnan 4 1 11285000.00
Jiangxi 3 3 14561333.33
Inner Mongolia 2 1 12025500.00
Ningxia 0 0 0.00
Tibet 0 0 0.00
Xinjiang 0 0 0.00
Guizhou 0 0 0.00
Gansu 0 0 0.00
Qinghai 0 0 0.00

And here's the breakdown city by city:

Anhui Province 15
Anqing 1
Bengbu 1
Chuzhou 1
Fuyang 1
Hefei (capital) 5
Huainan 1
Ma'anshan 1
Tongling 1
Wuhu 2
Xuancheng 1

Beijing 98

Fujian Province 42
Fuqing 1
Fuzhou (capital) 12
Jinjiang 2
Longyan 1
Nanping 1
Putian 2
Quanzhou 4
Sanming 1
Shishi 3
Xiamen 13
Zhangzhou 2

Guangdong Province 185
Huzhou 1
Dongguan 32
Foshan 10
Gaoming 1
Guangzhou (capital) 34
Haifeng 1
Heyuan 1
Heshan 1
Huidong 1
Huiyang 1
Huizhou 5
Jiangmen 3
Kaiping 1
Maoming 1
Meizhou 1
Shanwei 2
Shaoguan 1
Shenzhen 70
Taishan 1
Xinhui 1
Xingning 1
Yangjiang 1
Zengcheng 2
Zhanjiang 2
Zhaoqing 1
Zhongshan 7
Zhuhai 3

Guangxi Province 10
Beihai 1
Guilin 1
Liuzhou 1
Nanning (capital) 5
Wuzhou 1
Yulin 1

Hainan Province 4
Haikou (capital) 3
Sanya 1

Hebei Province 19
Baoding 2
Cangzhou 1
Handan 1
Langfang 1
Qinhuangdao 1
Lanhe 1
Shijiazhuang (capital) 5
Tangshan 4
Zhangjiakou 2

Henan Province 20
Jiaozuo 1
Kaifeng 1
Luoyang 2
Luohe 1
Nanyang 1
Pingdingshan 1
Puyang 1
Xinxiang 1
Xuchang 1
Zhengzhou (capital) 9
Zhoukou 1

Heilongjiang Province 9
Daqing 1
Harbin 7
Mudanjiang 1

Hubei Province 34
Jingmen 1
Jingshan 2
Shiyan 1
Wuhan (capital) 27
Xiangfan 2
Yichang 1

Hunan Province 21
Changsha (province) 11
Changde 1
Chenzhou 1
Hengyang 2
Liuyang 1
Shaoyang 1
Xiangtan 2
Yueyang 1
Zhuzhou 1

Jilin Province 6
Changchun (capital) 4
Jilin 2

Jiangsu Province 61
Changshou 1
Changzhou 4
Huaiyin 1
Jiangyin 1
Kunshan 1
Lianyungang 1
Nanjing (capital) 25
Nantong 1
Qidong 1
Suzhou 5
Taixing 1
Wuxi 8
Wujiang 1
Xuzhou 2
Yancheng 1
Yangzhou 4
Zhangjiagang 1
Zhenjiang 2

Jiangxi Province 3
Jiujiang 1
Nanchang (capital) 2

Liaoning Province 35
Dalian 15
Shenyang (capital) 17
Anshan 2
Fushan 1

Inner Mongolia 2
Huhehaote (capital) 2

Shandong Province 23
Dongying 1
Qingdao 6
Linyi 1
Jinan (capital) 5
Rizhou 1
Shouguang 1
Tai'an 1
Weihai 1
Weifang 1
Yantai 2
Zibo 3

Shanxi Province 8
Datong 2
Linfen 1
Taiyuan (capital) 5

Shaanxi Province 12
Weinan 1
Baoji 1
Xi'an (capital) 9
Xianyang 1

Shanghai 86

Sichuan Province 20
Chengdu (capital) 13
Deyang 1
Luzhou 2
Mianyang 1
Neijiang 1
Nanchong 1
Zigong 1

Tianjin 31

Yunnan Province 4
Kunming 4

Zhejiang Province 44
Anji 1
Cixi 1
Hangzhou (capital) 11
Huzhou 1
Jiaxing 3
Jinhua 2
Lanxi 1
Lishui 1
Ningbo 6
Quzhou 1
Shaoxing 5
Taizhou 1
Wenzhou 5
Xiaoshan 1
Yiniao 2
Yuyao 1
Zhoushan 1