Pu'er City was officially named as National Garden City by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China (MOHURD) on January 14, 2014. With this recognition, Pu'er was honored with another nationally-accredited golden business card in hand.

Pu'er city launched its bid for National Garden City in 2008 as part of its efforts to further boost its urban landscape and urban management level so as to transcend into a livable city. In 2012, Pu'er officially submitted its application to MOHURD as one of candidates for the honor.

After the city set sight on the ambitious goal, Pu'er Municipal Government and the subordinated governments in Pu'er urban districts have made it the central task of its urban construction efforts and jointly adopted many effective measures to turn Pu'er City into a garden like one.

By means of centralized and unified arrangement, and strict city-wide implementation with clearly-demarcated responsibilities, Pu'er City has forcefully stepped up its efforts to become a National Garden City. After a thorough investigation on the green achievements it had made in built-up areas, Pu'er City gained a clear picture about its green status quo and loopholes to be mended, and worked out accordingly an implementation plan to, combine with urban construction efforts, optimize public facilities, urban virescence, as well as ecological & environment protection.

A comprehensive rectification program was also carried out by Pu'er City to comb its urban traffic network and beautify its urban appearance. Treatment and improvement for urban water environment was also one of the top priorities Pu'er City has worked hard for. As guaranteed by the guideline of "adding more green areas via urban planning, dismantling old houses to make way for green space, surrounding newly built road with green belts, reinforcing urban sanitary with green project, inserting green patches to places suitable", Pu'er City has achieved apparent green results in a scientific and orderly manner.

Meanwhile, Pu'er City has focused on highlighting its unique urban landscape and upgrading its urban look. As a result, it has put in place a green landscape with harmonious blending of urban and neighboring natural sceneries by giving prominence to the cultivation of an eco-friendly life and landscape system; it has stricken a balance in urban and rural green development by paying special attention to urban eco-protection; it has ameliorated urban living conditions by launching campaign for building municipal "garden-like working space, garden-like residential space, green-like rural courtyard"; it has transcended into a better city with an upgraded urban look.

Thanks to its consistent efforts to further reinforce eco-protection and comprehensive management, Pu'er City has witnessed ever-improving public facilities, ever-expanding green areas, and ever-purifying living environment. Its green coverage rate in major urban built-up areas is as high as 36.38 percent, greening rate in built-up areas hits 34 percent, and urban per capital public green areas reaches 10.66 square meters.

National Garden City, which is conferred biennially by MOHURD under the authorization of the State Council, is the highest honor given by the nation to cities with best virescence achievements. In total, 37 cities are honored with the title together with Pu'er City included.