Beijing has recently been declared China's "Harry-est City" by Joyo Amazon, the largest Chinese-language bookstore in the world and a major stockist of the Harry Potter books.

Other cities on the shortlist are Huizhou, Zhuhai and Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, Shanghai, and Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province.

The cities were chosen for their sales of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in the series. Shi Tao, vice-president of Joyo Amazon, says that Harry Potter 7 (the Chinese version) has sold three times more copies than its predecessors.

The "Harry-est Town" in China is an honor given to the city that has ordered the most copies of Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows from Joyo Amazon on a per capita basis, according to Shi Tao.

So far the Chinese edition of the previous six Harry Potter installments have reportedly sold over 9 million copies across China. Since its first installment came out in 1997, the Harry Potter series has been translated into 65 languages and sold at least 300 million copies.

(China Daily via china.org.cn December 12, 2007)