Abstract: China's economy has changed from high-speed growth to high-quality development. How to further promote the high-quality economic development has become the primary task of the economic work of the whole country in the new era. Based on the in-depth analysis of the connotation of high-quality economic development, this paper constructs a new evaluation index system of high-quality economic development in China and scientifically measures the national high-quality economic development level and its spatial distribution law by using the entropy weight method and the system clustering method. The research findings show that the current situation of China's high-quality economic development has presented a stepwise spatial distribution state of “East-Central-West” regions decreasing in turn, and there are obvious regional uneven differences in the high-quality economic development among different provinces by the end of 2017. For specific performances, the highest comprehensive level of high-quality economic development is of Beijing, followed by Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Tianjin. Chongqing is“the most outstanding one”among the central and western provinces, and the only western region among the top ten in China. Most of the central and western regions, especially the western regions, are relatively lagging behind at such dimensions as comprehensive quality and efficiency, innovation, coordination, opening-up and sharing.

Key words: high quality economic development, evaluation index system, entropy weight method, system clustering