Customers search for books in the Librairie Avant-Garde bookstore in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, Jan 25, 2015. The bookstore was named as China's most beautiful bookshop by CNN in 2013 and also included in "Ten of the world's most beautiful bookshops" by BBC in 2014.(Photo: China News Service/An Dong)
Online retailer Amazon China unveiled its annual list of most romantic cities on Thursday, with Zhengzhou in Henan Province declared the most romantic Chinese city of 2015.
According to Amazon, Zhengzhou led the country in the proportion of books on the topics of love, marriage and romance purchased last year.
Cities of Erdos and Baotou, both in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, ranked second and third.
Among the top ten, northern Chinese cities outnumbered southern for the first time.
"The result does not necessarily mean that northern Chinese are more romantic than their southern counterparts. The ranking reflects many factors, not just the atmosphere of a city," said Shi Jianjun, vice-president of Amazon China.
China's four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- did not feature in the top 40.
Amazon said it appears that residents in smaller cities are under less pressure and have more leisure time to enjoy romantic literature.
