Shanghai Tower (the highest in the picture), a new landmark of Shanghai's financial hub Lujiazui, is nearly complete. [Provided to China Daily]

Shanghai has for the third time topped the list of the 10 most attractive Chinese cities for expats, on a survey being released on Monday.

The financial hub scored highest in the ranking's four important indexes for foreigners to evaluate cities, including the policies for foreign professionals, the working environment and the living environment.

The other nine cities on the list are, in order from No 2, Beijing, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Xiamen and Kunming.

This is the fifth time the ranking, organized by the International Talent magazine and China Society for Research on International Professional Personnel Exchange and Development, has been released. Between July and December, nearly 20,000 foreign professionals throughout China participated in the survey.

Shanghai has become one of the hottest destinations in China for foreigners to work and study and has more than 88,000 resident foreign experts, one-sixth of the national total.