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Q: How do license plates work in China?
How can you tell where someone comes from? Do police cars have special numbers?
12 years 4 weeks ago in Transport & Travel - China
Normally, the license plates I see have a Chinese character towards the far left (that character is the province abbreviation character), then a letter, and after that 5 alphanumerical characters.
As I was told, in my province the first letter on the far left (after the Chinese character) defines the city within that province, and in my case again, "A" would mean Nanning. Other letters would mean other cities, towns or villages within the Guangxi Province.
Police Service plates have a designated format of X·LLNNN·"警" (X is the geographical abbreviation, N is a digit, and L is either a digit or a letter; "警" means police and is coloured red). These plates are issued to traffic police, some patrol vehicles, court, and procuraturate vehicles.
Thakkudu:
wonder how can you be expert in everything!... i think ur name need to be changed to HappyExPert
HappyExPat:
I do really do not consider myself an expert on anything. I do have been blessed with a high IQ and a superb memory, and I do try hard to excersise them every day. Long time ago I used to collect gold coins, I had coins from every country I had visited, probably over 300 of them, in a very nice display case at my home. But one day it disapeared, it was stolen and it did affect me quite a bit. My father told me one day when he saw me still mourning my loss, to try collecting knowledge, since it can not be stolen from you. And I started it. Today, when I see something I do not know much about, I seek information on it to satisfy my curiosity. While others may sit at a bar and drink, I seek a good book or plan a new trip somewhere. And while in doing what pleases me keeps me Happy, by no means I do consider me an expert on anything, because the more knowledge you have, the more you realize that there is still a long way to go on the quest for knowledge. So, please leave me as Happy ExPat, it does reflect my personality better.
In addition to what Happy said, if you see a red Chinese character at the beginning of the license plate, it is a military vehicle. Military, government and police vehicles are mostly immune to standard traffic laws.
And if the license plate begins with a 0, it is most likely a government vehicle.
All of the above.
And in addition if you see a black number plate with red chinese writing at the front it is a embassy/consulate car
Also, if you see a lot of 6666's or 8888's, then you know the driver is loaded.....as if the Benz or BMW emblem didn't already tell you that 
