Taipei City and Yilan County are the two best performing administrative regions in the country in terms of cancer prevention, according to results of a survey released Wednesday by Common Health Magazine. Chang Hsiao-hui, editor-in-chief of the magazine, attributed Taipei City's top ranking to its community health care network and promotion of smoke-free restaurants, as well as its weight loss campaigns. About 30 percent of Taipei residents also have the habit of exercising regularly, the highest percentage among all cities and counties in the country. The percentage of Taipei residents who undergo self-screening for cancer ranked third in Taiwan. All of these factors have contributed to the city's top ranking, according to Chang. Yilan County, meanwhile, ranked first in the prevention and control of betel nut chewing, which has been found to cause cancer. The county came in second in terms of cancer screening rates, third in anti-cancer lifestyles, and ninth in tobacco hazard prevention and control. Its overall performance was only second to Taipei City. The survey, designed to review Taiwanese cities and counties' policies at preventing cancer, looked at four areas: lifestyle, tobacco hazard prevention and control, betel nut hazard prevention and control, and cancer screening. Tainan City and Changhua County were recognized as the top two areas with special characteristics in their tobacco hazard prevention and control efforts. Tainan bans smoking in traditional markets, historic sites and even parks, going as far as levying fines on mainland Chinese tourists for violating the smoking ban. Changhua has taken an initiative to mobilize the county's 50,000 school children to promote non-smoking in their homes. Meanwhile, Keelung City, Taitung County, Pingtung County and Taipei County were considered as still having ample room for improvement in their cancer prevention efforts, according to the survey. These areas were found to have poor performance in combating smoking, Chang said, adding that 47 percent of male residents in Keelung smoke, the highest rate in Taiwan. Taitung did not fare better. One in three adult males in the county has the habit of chewing betel nuts, making it the county with the highest incidence of oral cancer among all the cities and counties in Taiwan. At the same time, the lifestyle habits of the heads of Taiwan's cities and counties were also evaluated in the survey. Yunlin Magistrate Su Chih-fen, Taitung Magistrate Kuang Li-chen and Kinmen Magistrate Lee Chu-feng tied for first place among all local chiefs for having the best anti-cancer lifestyle, the survey found. Lienchiang Magistrate Chen Hsueh-sheng and Penghu Magistrate Wang Chien-fa are the only two city or county leaders who smoke. But only nine of Taiwan's 23 local chiefs had body mass index (BMI) within the standard for normal health, according to the survey. The survey was conducted by the magazine's poll center between June 3-27 among a number of randomly selected respondents through telephone interviews. A total of 10,308 valid samples were collected. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 to 5.0 percent, and a confidence level of 95 percent. 