A villager in Ninghai county, Zhejiang province receives New Year decorations at a rural Taobao shop. [Photo by Zhang Yongtao/For China Daily]

AliResearch, the research arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, published its list of the top 100 counties (including county-level cities and districts) featuring Taobao villages on Sept 14. East China's Zhejiang province took 27 spots on the list.

Taobao is an online marketplace run by Alibaba. AliResearch has three requirements for the designation of Taobao villages: the business operation site must be village-based, annual e-commerce sales must be valued at no less than 10 million yuan ($1.45 million), and the number of active online stores must be more than 100, or at least 10 percent of all households in the village must be conducting business online.

Currently, Taobao villages are mainly located in China's eastern coastal areas.

Of the top 10 counties (including county-level cities and districts) on the list, seven are in Zhejiang. They are Yongkang city (3rd) in Jinhua, Cixi city (5th) in Ningbo, Xiaoshan district (6th) in Hangzhou, Yueqing city (7th) in Wenzhou, Wenling city (9th) in Taizhou, and Haining city (10th) in Jiaxing.