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Studies have shown that, city size and rank follow a Pareto distribution across countries and over time. However, inconsistent definitions and measurements of city size (e.g., urban population and urban area) in census data in China have hindered the retrieval of comparable Pareto coefficients over time. Additionally, abrupt changes in size and rank at the city level are neglected in many studies. In this study, we extracted an alternative and consistently comparable measurement of city size from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Line-scan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime light images. Besides the traditional regression analysis at the national level, we also adopted the rank clock method to analyze city-size evolution at the city level. We found that: (1) the distribution of urban areas became more even in China, with an increase of the Pareto's coefficient from 0.79 in 1992 to 0.90 in 2008; (2) the most …