Abstract: In the context of rural revitalization, elucidating the scale characteristics and spatial configurations of ‘towns', coupled with a thorough exploration of its determinants, holds paramount significance for devising strategies for rural revitalization and advancing the paradigm of new urbanization. Building upon the established standards for designating ‘administrative towns' and the statistical benchmarks for ‘town population' in China, this study endeavors to unveil the demographic scale attributes, regional differentials, and determinants of the 18,100 administrative towns across the nation. The empirical findings underscore that, as of 2017, the mean population size of administrative towns in China was 14,500, with a conspicuous disparity evident between county towns (average of 49,300), district-administered towns (21,400), county-level city-administered towns (14,100), and general towns under county administration (8,800). The distribution of towns based on size reveals proportions of 6.18% for superlarge towns, 5.10% for large towns, 22.21% for medium towns, and 66.51% for small towns. Correspondingly, the population proportions were 41.5%, 13.4%, 25.8%, and 19.3%. Furthermore, the landscape encompasses 324 ‘giant towns' and 2,746 ‘micro towns'. A nuanced analysis underscores that while small towns are numerous, the population exhibits a pronounced predilection for aggregating in super-large towns, particularly within the prosperous southeastern coastal regions. A synthesis of natural and socio-economic factors collectively influences town size, albeit with notable heterogeneity in the determinants between county seat towns and their non-county seat counterparts. This study underscores the imperative for nuanced strategies, accounting for town typologies and regional variations, to propel the objectives of new urbanization efficaciously.