Having been cited as National Sanitation City in 1995, Zhongshan is taking further steps to add to that reputation. In 1999, Zhongshan has been tested respectively by the national and provincial leading groups for recognition as ever-green city, free from further testing. The work of National Sanitary City has been consolidated and refined to improve the people health conditions, and meanwhile laid solid base for other evaluation works, such as, National Garden City, China's Excellent Tourist City, and National Model City for Environment Protection.

Zhongshan has applied the methods of sanitary management to the towns and rural areas, in order to design and construct a unity between the urban city and the countryside, and to construct Zhongshan with the idea of "Two Suitables". This plan begins with improving villagers' living standard and then their sanitary environment. Many contests and activities concerning public sanitation have been carried out in every towns and villages. All these efforts lead to improvement of sanitary environment for villagers in return, and thus 247 villages and all the 18 towns in Zhongshan, including Xiaolan, Guzhen and Shaxi and so on, have reached the national standard for sanitation town.