Demand for electricity in China kept accelerating in recent years; moreover, there exist serious mismatches among the distribution of power demand, energy resources, and power generation infrastructure across different regions in China, both of which indicate a necessity of a holistic and integrated approach to the strategic planning and development of its power industry. Material benefits could be realized by ensuring that the long term development of the power system is optimized by taking into consideration the different regional dynamics and characteristics. This paper proposes a multi-region optimization model that can deliver insights into how planning of the long term development of China's power sector could minimize the total cost of China's power sector by considering regional variations in availabilities of resources and inter-region power transmission line capacity. A case study considered how investment decisions to expand and alter the existing generation mix could be optimized across a timeframe from 2011 to 2050. By comparing results between single and multi-region optimizations, it was possible to show the likely impact on how investment decisions would differ when regional differences were taken into account. The multi-region optimization arguably better reflects and considers conditions and challenges in the real world. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.