Where is Tao the license plate from?
2 Answers
Currently, there is no license plate with the character 'Tao'. The first character of a license plate number is a Chinese character representing the abbreviation of the province where the vehicle is registered, and the second character is an English letter representing the code of the city at the prefecture level where the vehicle is located. Currently, there are five colors for license plates in China: blue, green, yellow, black, and white. Blue license plates are mainly used for small vehicles, including ordinary vehicles or government-specific number segment vehicles. Green license plates are divided into two types: one for tractors and the other, a 'gradient green', is a special plate introduced for new energy vehicles. Yellow license plates are mainly for large vehicles, motorcycles, driving school vehicles, and container truck trailers. Black license plates are mainly for foreign-related vehicles, with a style basically the same as blue plates, and they are not used for administrative vehicles of political and legal departments. White background license plates are mainly used for police vehicles of public security, procuratorate, and court departments, or armed forces vehicles. License plates for the People's Liberation Army's military vehicles will also bear characters such as 'police' or 'military'.
When it comes to the abbreviations on license plates, I was also confused when I first started learning to drive. The instructor repeatedly emphasized that the first character on Chinese license plates is the abbreviation of the provincial-level administrative region, such as "Yue" for Guangdong and "Jing" for Beijing. The "Tao" you mentioned really isn’t on the standard list—it might be a typo, perhaps "Jin" was mistakenly written as "Tao." "Jin" stands for Tianjin. Tianjin is a well-known coastal industrial city in North China, and those Tianjin-licensed vehicles are often seen on long-distance trips or deliveries. Knowing this is quite useful because it helps new drivers more easily identify where vehicles come from, especially at toll booths or accident scenes to avoid confusion. I even made a note of common provincial abbreviations and stuck it on my car for quick review, so I won’t make similar misreading mistakes next time. Overall, the license plate system is designed to standardize traffic management and prevent chaos.
