Ask any Chinese person about the hottest cities in China , and chances are they'll name the famous ''Three Furnaces'' - Chongqing , Wuhan and Nanjing . (For a charming reminiscence on how people used to get through the summer in Wuhan before air-conditioning, click here .)

But how accurate is popular wisdom compared to statistics? If you ask the China Meteorological Administration about China 's hottest cities, do you get the same ''three furnaces''? Well, not exactly.

There are three ways to measure the concept of ''hottest city''. The first is the ''hottest ever'' scale: just find out the highest temperature that's ever been recorded in the town. The second is the ''hot days'' scale: the average number of days in a year when the mercury climbs into the ''hot'' zone - between 32 and 37C (89.6 - 98.6F ). And finally there's the ''scorcher'' index: the number of days in an average summer when the temperature goes above 37C ( 98.6F ).

There's one city in China that wins hands down on all three counts, with an average of 38 scorchers a year, and a strength-sapping 144 days in the ''hot'' zone. More awesome still is that city's record high, when people with the energy to look at the thermometer saw it touch 49.6C ( 121.3F )! It's not one of the traditional ''three furnaces'': it's Turpan in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far west of China . Like Death Valley in the United States , it lies in a depression - at 154m (505 feet) below sea level, it's one of the lowest inhabited places on Earth. Surrounded by searing arid terrain, Turpan itself is an oasis, famous for its grapes and its cool, snow-fed underground aqueducts.

So which city comes next in the hot hit parade? It is indeed one of the ''three furnaces'' – Chongqing , where the hottest day ever recorded was 43.8C ( 110.8F ). Kid's stuff, Turpan residents might say. Well, they can scoff if they like, but put that kind of heat together with the stifling humidity of southwest China, and Chongqing seems like a nice place to visit ... in January!

The table below lists China 's five hottest cities, and sure enough, the three furnaces are there, along with two interlopers – Turpan, and Nanchang , capital of Jiangxi province in southeastern China .

City	Highest-ever Temperature	Average nnual Hot Summer Days （ 32C~ 37C ） (89.6 -98.6F )	Average Annual Very Hot Summer days ( 37C +) ( 98.6F +)
Turpan	48.9	143.8	38.3
Chongqing	43.8	77.2	26.4
Wuhan	41.3	71.2	12
Nanchang	40.9	na	na
Nanjing	40.7	62.6	9.4

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