Over the last five years, bus rapid transit (BRT) has expanded faster in China than in any other region, with 320 km of BRT systems opened in thirteen cities. These systems were all relatively low capacity, low-to-medium demand systems until the opening of the Guangzhou BRT in February 2010. The Guangzhou BRT carries more passengers in a single direction than all the subway lines in mainland China, with the exception of the Beijing Line 2 subway, and is in many ways a generational advance on the earlier systems. This article describes the development trends of BRT in China ranging from the earliest median busway in Kunming in 1999 through to the metro-replacement level BRT in Guangzhou in 2010