Data shows that 24 provinces ran ahead of the national GDP last year. At the same time, the GDP of 25 provinces was above one trillion yuan each, or 154 billion U.S. dollars, in 2015.

Chongqing and Tibet topped the list with 10.7 percent GDP growth. Liaoning Province reported a minus 1.3 percent drop in growth. That was the lowest in China last year. 

Analysts say the recovery of the infrastructure and property sectors contributed most to local governments' GDP. And the trend continued in the first quarter of this year. Take Guangdong Province for example. The province's GDP rose 7.3 percent year on year in the first three months of this year. That was 0.6 percentage points higher than the national level.

The sales volume of commercial houses reached more than 302 billion yuan in the same period. That was an increase of nearly 93 percent from a year ago. However, analysts also noted that growth in the services sector also injected energy into the province's economy.