The skyline view of the Hangzhou CBD on July 1, 2012. [Photo/IC]

Cheng Yuan, who set up his IT company Fangcloud Technology in Hangzhou in 2013, believes the city has the strongest entrepreneurial atmosphere in China except Beijing.

The computing master of the year 2009 from Carnegie Mellon University served as the core engineer of the then-startup Box, which later grew into America's largest cloud storage service provider for businesses. He witnessed the company's growth and had an all-around vision of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial atmosphere.

Cheng's standard of a city's entrepreneurial atmosphere is that entrepreneurship becomes a city's driving force, drawing technology, talent, capital and public opinion for the city's development.

"Hangzhou has pioneering companies, such as Alibaba and Netease. They are bringing together IT talent and other IT companies," he said.

Top 20 cities with highest increasing rate of returnees (2010-15)

1. Hangzhou

2. Wuhan

3. Chengdu

4. Changsha

5. Chongqing

6. Nanjing

7. Guangzhou

8. Xi'an

9. Taiyuan

10. Harbin

11. Hefei

12. Zhengzhou

13. Urumqi

14. Shijiazhuang

15. Nanchang

16. Wenzhou

17. Kunming

18. Zhuhai

19. Jinan

20. Ningbo

Data from LinkedIn