Taizhou in East China's Zhejiang province has recently been listed among the happiest cities in China for the sixth time.

The increased income among local residents due to the robust development of e-commerce is part of the reason why they feel happy living in the city.

Taizhou is presently home to 298 Taobao villages, 50 Taobao towns as well as 23 e-commerce industrial parks.

Taobao is an online marketplace run by Alibaba. The AliResearch Institute lays out three requirements for a place to be designated as a Taobao village: the business operation site must be village-based, annual e-commerce sales must be at least 10 million yuan ($1.53 million), and either the number of active online stores must be more than 100 or at least 10 percent of all households in the village be engaged in e-commerce.

A Taobao town refers to a town or sub-district with at least three Taobao villages. It must also be home to at least 300 active online shops with over 30 million yuan in e-commerce sales on Alibaba marketplaces.

Official statistics show that Taizhou has about 48,000 active online stores. From January to November last year, the city's online retail sales reached 110.35 billion yuan, up 13.8 percent year-on-year, while its residents' online consumption hit 90.42 billion yuan, a rise of 14.6 percent.

Lingxiangdian village located in Jiaojiang district exemplifies the city's booming e-commerce.

As a manufacturing hub for children's wear, the village started to tap business opportunities online by setting up an e-commerce industrial park in 2015.

The establishment of the park has greatly expanded the sales of 1,000 childrenswear manufacturers in the village.

The village has also hired hosts to promote goods via livestreams. Fang Qihong, Party chief of Lingxiangdian village, said that one livestream session once helped sell 10,000 pieces of clothing from the village.