Why do cities in China like to be named after what state?

Probably because in the past, most state capitals in China were marked with the word "state", such as guangzhou fu, Huizhou and Chaozhou. After these places gradually developed into cities, although some place names changed during this period, a large number of place names with the word "state" remained and became the current city names. I think this is the main reason why most city names in China use the word "state" today.

According to statistics, only cities above the prefecture level have the word "Zhou" at the end: Guangzhou, Lanzhou, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wenzhou, Meizhou, Chaozhou, Huizhou, Yizhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Cangzhou, Ganzhou, Dingzhou, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Luzhou, Zhuzhou, Wuzhou, Jinzhou and Shuozhou. Among them, there are 5 provincial capital cities, namely Guangzhou, Lanzhou, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou and Hangzhou.