An increasing number of cities in China are adopting marketing techniques and methods in their governing philosophy and administrative practice to promote their cities. The transfer of marketing knowledge, however, to the operational environment of cities proves a cause of difficulties, mostly due to the peculiar nature of places in general and cities in particular as marketable assets. In this study, English literatures on corporate branding and place branding are extensively reviewed for the purpose of critically developing an analytical framework for empirical case studies of city branding. The most common concept used in the literature of place branding comes from corporate branding, which requires considerable modifications in order to analyze the branding of cities. In the meantime, the study creatively integrates a communication perspective with management literature. One Chinese city, Chengdu, is chosen to apply this analytical framework in order to shed some lights on city branding efforts in China. Key Words: Place Branding; Destination branding; City Branding, China, Case Study, Chengdu