Beijing publishes more nature-related content than any other Chinese cities, according to the latest Nature Publishing Index (NPI) from Nature Publishing Group (NPG).

The index, published as a supplement to the May issue of "Nature" magazine, ranked institutions and countries/territories based on the number of NPG research articles published in the past year.

NPI presents a corrected count (CC), based on the percentage of "Nature"-affiliated authors at a given institution, to reflect the relative contributions of individual authors to individual articles.

With distinct advantages in science and research, Beijing is the dominant force in NPI ranking, followed by Shanghai and Hefei.

Only articles printed during the ranking period were included. The online publications were not counted until being assigned an issue number and sent to press.

This most recent NPI showed that China, which has traditionally been strong in physical science research, is also proving competitive in the life sciences. China ranked first among Asia-Pacific nations in five "Nature" journals: "Nature Biotechnology," "Nature Cell Biology," "Nature Genetics," "Nature Structural & Molecular Biology" and "Nature Methods." The NPI attributed China’s heightened prominence to increased funding for research and encouraged further funding for basic science education.

The growth was reflected both in the number of institutions represented and in the number of papers they produced. There were an unprecedented number of Chinese institutions – 217 – ranked by the NPI in 2012, 43 percent more than there were in 2012. Of these, 107 institutions were appearing on the index for the first time. Twenty-six previously unranked institutions were listed on the Chinese Top 100.

Authors from the Chinese institutions published 303 papers in "Nature" journals in 2012, a 35 percent increase from last year. Chinese publications accounted for 8.5 percent of "Nature" publications overall.

The following are the top 10 Chinese cities in nature publishing in 2012.

 Tianjin（天津）

Corrected count:2.84

Major institutions:

Nankai University, Tianjin University, Tianjin Medical University

GDP per capita:91,180 yuan (US$14,848)

Population:14.1 million