Smart Cities and Urban Planning: Indexed Journal and Conference List with APC and No-APC Options

A land suitability analysis for new housing, built in GIS with a weighted overlay of slope, flood risk and transport access, carefully done. Sent to a leading urban studies journal and returned in eight days: the journal publishes critical and theoretical social science, and a technical site selection method is outside its aims.

The analysis was sound. The journal was wrong. Urban research splits sharply between computational, engineering, economic and critical social science journals, and each enforces its own aims. The same paper would have gone out to review at a computational urban analytics or planning methods journal.

In this humanities and social science field most respected journals charge no APC, so the tables are grouped by cost, then by index inside each group.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago; the JCR quartile from Clarivate, using the impact factor. Urban research spans SCIE, SSCI and AHCI, so check which index your rule names. An ESCI journal looks like an SSCI one on screen but will not satisfy a rule asking for SSCI. Settling this first is part of Journal Submission Preparation.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Indexed conference routes in urban planning

Four relevant series. Other matches in the data, including an AI planning conference, petroleum regional meetings and a mathematics series, share a word only and are left out.

Co-authorship and supervisor credit in urban research

1. City officials as co-authors. A planner who shaped the question, interpreted the results and revised the text qualifies. One who supplied data only belongs in the acknowledgements.
2. Data-sharing agreements. Municipal data often come with conditions on publication. Check whether the city must review the manuscript before submission, and build that time in.
3. Studio and student projects. Planning schools produce research through studios. Where students did substantive analysis, they should be authors, not only thanked.
4. Supervisors. Authorship follows contribution, not seniority. Agree the order and roles in writing at the start, and use a contribution statement.
5. Consultancy work. Research done for a paying client needs the client's permission to publish and a conflict of interest statement.

Help with authorship and preparation is part of Manuscript Preparation Support.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

What is the CAS partition, and how is it different from the JCR quartile?

The CAS partition, published yearly by the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sorts journals into Zones 1 to 4, with Zone 1 holding the top five percent of a subject. The JCR quartile splits a list into four equal quarters. A JCR Q1 urban journal can therefore sit in CAS Zone 2 or 3.

Which urban planning journals are CAS Zone 1?

CAS zones are not part of the data behind this page, so none are listed rather than guessed. Check the current year's table through your university library. The highest impact titles, such as Sustainable Cities and Society and Landscape and Urban Planning, are the likeliest candidates.

Do Chinese universities accept Scopus Q1, or only CAS Zone 1 and 2?

Most Chinese universities do not treat Scopus Q1 as equivalent to CAS Zone 1 or 2. The usual order is CAS zone, then an internal list, with Scopus counting for less, so a Scopus Q1 title with no Web of Science listing may count for little in China.

How do Chinese institutions rank urban planning journals?

Most use the CAS partition first, often with an internal list naming specific journals, and some planning schools also recognise key Chinese-language planning journals. Get the written rule before choosing a venue.

Which urban planning journals accept secondary data or publicly available datasets?

All of them. Census data, land use maps, satellite imagery, transport data, open city portals and mobility data are routine sources. Editors require the source, version, date and processing steps.

Do I need ethics approval for an urban planning paper using open data?

Usually not for aggregated public data, though your institution decides. Approval is needed for interviews, surveys, participatory workshops, and for mobile phone or social media data that can trace individuals, even when anonymised by the provider.

Which urban planning journals require a data availability statement?

Most publishers here, including Elsevier, SAGE, Springer Nature, Wiley, MDPI and Taylor and Francis, now require one. Where municipal or commercial data cannot be shared, say so and name the source.

Which urban planning journals charge no article processing fee and are still indexed?

As on October 2026 the ten titles in Route 1 charge no APC, led by Regional Sustainability, and 24 of the 26 titles in Route 2 charge no APC unless you choose open access, including every SCIE and SSCI flagship. The other two are marked APC unconfirmed.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. In urban research a further check is common: whether data sources, spatial resolution and study periods are stated precisely. Run your own overlap check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and use the AI Journal Finder to confirm the journal's scope matches your abstract before you submit.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it. The revision round is Review & Response Support, language is Manuscript Editing, planning a sequence of papers is the Mentorship Program, partners with city data are Collaboration Matching, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about index tiers

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。