As of December 2017, there are 229 commercial airports in China.[1]
Around 500 airports of all types and sizes were in operation in 2007, about 400 of which had paved runways and about 100 of which had runways of 3,047 m or shorter. There also were 35 heliports in 2007, an increasingly used type of facility. With the additional airports came a proliferation of airlines.
China has the fastest growing passenger air market of any country in the world (by total passenger numbers) and between 2009 and 2014 the number of passengers increased over 47% from 266,293,020 to 390,878,784.[2] In 2014 China was second only to the United States in total numbers of passengers carried.[2]