The purpose of this paper is to clarify the internal life-space structure in Chinese cities,by a case study of Lanzhou,the capital city of Gansu Province.A special attention is paid to DANWEI(or working unit),a principal territorial form of the urban life in Chinese cities.The formation,the roles,the daily-life patterns,and the distributive characters of DANWEI are considered.It is clarified that the internal life-space structure in Chinese cities is composed of three levels(Fig.4):the basic life-space as DANWEI,Which is related to both the works and residences of the citizens,and influences on the urban land-use pattern as well as the social area structure;the low-level life-space which is composed of the homogeneous DANWEI; the high-level life-space which is the Municipal District.This internal life-spacestructure in Chinese cities is formed through the administrative control and the residentialPlan of the Municipal Bureau(Fig.5).