Abstract: From the three levels of degree, quality and efficiency of openness, this paper constructs an evaluation index system to evaluate China’s regional open economic development level, then the improved entropy method is adopted to calculate the score of open economic development in China’s different provinces and municipalities from 2005 to 2012. The results show that the levels of open economic development are significantly different at different regions, the highest is the eastern region, followed by the northeast, central and west, but the gradient gaps between the four regions are shrinking each year. The general changing trend of open economic development is different at each region, the eastern region shows a clear downward trend, the central region shows a clear upward trend, the western region shows a slow upward trend, no such trend can be found in the northeast region. The changing trends are also different in the degree, quality and effectiveness of openness at different regions, the eastern part shows a significant downward trend, while the central part shows a clear upward trend.

Key words: open economy; evaluation index system; improved entropy method; dynamic changing trends