摘要：This study chose major Chinese cities and used the creative model of Smart Low-carbon Strength Quo- tient （SLSQ） to investigate the level and state of urban smart low-carbon development. The results show that： （1） three main categories of smart low-carbon cities are found; namely, leaders with high SLSQ, steady ones with av- erage SLSQ and lagging ones with low SLSQ; （2） the SLSQ level shows a spatial change trend of diminishing from the southeast to the northwest and differing within regions; （3） the SLSQ level indicates an urban scale change trend of decreasing from the big to the small and differing within each scale; （4） the SLSQ level suggests an ad- ministrative hierarchy change trend of descending from the high to the low and differing within each class; （5） based on the SLSQ, three dynamic patterns were identified： leading mode, steady mode and preparing mode, among which the steady mode accounts for the vast majority of smart low-carbon development in major Chinese cities.