# China license plate: Small car

> The China small car license plate: format L99999, for example 京A·88562, 1992 to today, car and van. What each character means, its sizes and sources.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/china/small-car-1992 · Markdown version of the HTML page, which is canonical. Site map: https://vehiclesdb.com/llms.txt · Terms of use: https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/terms

Part of [China license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/china) (22 registration series).

![China license plate, Small car (1992 to today)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/cn/cn-small-car-1992/china-license-plate-small-car.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `L99999` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | 1992 → today |
| Class | standard |
| Issued for | car, van |
| Plate size | 440 × 140 mm |
| Colours | background #1C3F94; characters #FFFFFF; border #FFFFFF |
| Rear plate differs from the front | no |
| Checking a registration | The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued. |
| Series id | `cn-small-car-1992` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/china/small-car-1992) |

The ordinary blue plate on most of China's cars since the 92-pattern began — province character, office letter, five characters, and a raised dot the standard says may be "embossed and coloured the same way" as the rest.

Two characters do all the decoding: the Han character is the province — 京 Beijing, 沪 Shanghai, 粤 Guangdong — and the letter is the issuing office within it, 粤A Guangzhou, 粤B Shenzhen. In the four municipalities the letter is only a batch: 京B is not a district.

| Code | Stands for | English |
|---|---|---|
| `京` | 北京市 | Beijing |
| `沪` | 上海市 | Shanghai |
| `粤` | 广东省 | Guangdong Province |
| `O` | 省、自治区公安厅车辆管理所 | the provincial public-security department's own vehicle office — the "O plate" |

Sources:

- [web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20150701102419/http://www.hngy.gov.cn/sitepublish/site1/wsbs/lyfwzl/jtfw/jdc/jdcfw/content_25106.html)
- [web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20161122160811/http://www.mps.gov.cn/n2254098/n4904352/c5550094/content.html)
- [hbba.sacinfo.org.cn](https://hbba.sacinfo.org.cn/stdDetail/12b7710b682f0e13dfc423a325751920)

## About this plate

The five-position serial is sourced twice over, GA 36-2007 表 3's 五位数 column and the Ministry's 2016 NEV announcement, which contrasts the ordinary plate's five positions with the NEV plate's six.

## How numbers are issued

combinations open in 表 3 order once the previous is 60% consumed (§ 5.9.2 a)); the inference is one-sided and no year claim is made from it

## Other standard plates here

- [HK/Macau cross-border](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/china/hkmacau-crossborder-2007) (documented since 2007)
- [Driving school car](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/china/driving-school-car-1992) (1992 to today)
- [Large car](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/china/large-car-1992) (1992 to today)

## Use it

- Plate image (SVG): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/cn/cn-small-car-1992.svg
- Make it with your own text: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plate-generator/china?series=cn-small-car-1992
- API: `GET https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/cn` returns this series as the entry with `"id": "cn-small-car-1992"` (https://vehiclesdb.com/api)

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Open data, CC BY 4.0: reuse it with a visible credit to VehiclesDB and a link (https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/attribution). Plate images show sample serials and are not open data (https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/image-license). Dataset commit db0ec0a: https://github.com/vehiclesdb/vehiclesdb