City night view of Chongqing, July 12, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

At least 12 Chinese provincial-level regions hit GDP above one trillion yuan ($148 billion) in the first half of the year, among 25 regions reporting on their data.

Guangdong province cemented its position as the country's largest provincial economy with 4.2 trillion yuan as of June this year, while second place goes to Jiangsu province achieving the value of 4.1 trillion yuan.

Chongqing, a municipality in Southwest China, marks the fastest growth of 10.5 percent, closely followed by Guizhou province's 10.4 percent.

At the bottom of the list, Northwest Gansu province and Northeast Liaoning province grew at 5 percent and 2.1 percent respectively.

Zhejiang, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Tibet autonomous region have not yet released economic data for the first six months of 2017.

China's economy expanded faster than expected from January to June, with GDP surging 6.9 percent year-on-year to about 38.2 trillion yuan, data from National Bureau of Statistics showed.

About 19 regions outpaced the nationwide growth rate, while Tianjin, Shanghai and Shanxi grew in line with that figure.

Trade plays a big role in the regional discrepancy, analysts noted, as fast-growing provinces Sichuan and Anhui reported a 59.5 percent and 25.9 percent rise separately in imports and exports.

Trade growth was led by global economic recovery and a lower yearly basis, Wang Xiaoguang, researcher with Chinese Academy of Governance, told Beijing News.

Tan Xinyu contributed to this story.