Abstract: Purpose/Significance In recent decades, local government innovation has become one of the most significant topics in public administration research. However, existing studies have only focused on the specific policy innovation cases. Little research has examined the overall innovativeness of local governments, meaning the extent to which local governments tend to adopt innovation. Design/Methodology This study puts forward a new conceptualization and measurement of Chinese local government innovativeness. Through constructing a theoretical analysis framework, proposing a series of assumptions, and designing comprehensive measurement indicators, this study analyzes the panel data of 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2019. Conclusions/Findings Compared with policy-maker characteristics, regional factors have a greater impact on local government innovativeness. In addition, the effects of external or internal factors will vary with time, space and innovativeness at the provincial level.