Abstract: New urbanization is the fundamental way for healthy, stable, and sustainable development of Chinese eco? nomic society. It is also the basic outlet to eliminate the“dual economic structure”in urban and rural areas. Accord? ing to connotation of new urbanization, this study constructs a comprehensive research index system on the new ur? banization level, which includes 24 indicators and considers population, economic development, quality of life, in? frastructure, resources and environment, and urban and rural planning. Entropy evaluation method is used to mea? sure the urbanization development level in 11 provincial capital cities from 2005 to 2015. Results reveal significant differences in the development level of new urbanization in these western capital cities, which can be divided into three levels:“high level”,“medium level”, and“low level”. These differences are mainly driven by infrastructure construction. The factors influencing individualized level of urbanization in different cities in different years are di? versified. Hence, weak aspects should be focused in the future development. Moreover, the quality of urbanization should be taken into account and the coordinated development in urban and rural areas should be promoted.

Key words: new urbanization level, comprehensive research, entropy evaluation method, provincial capital cities in western China