Naval Vessels Naming Regulation

The Naval Vessels Naming Regulation () is a regulation that governs the naming of vessels of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. It was published by the PLAN on November 18, 1978, and was revised on July 10, 1986.
Nomenclature.
The regulation states that surface combatants above cruiser class (i.e. battleships and aircraft carriers) shall be named by the State Council on a case-by-case basis while others are named after geographical locations:
Ship Prefixes.
Neither the Chinese Government nor PLAN use ship prefixes internally. However, a system of ship prefixes similar to that of the West has been developed by many internet sources for similar classification: