Based on various local monographs and research materials, this study tentatively estimates that local newspapers appeared in at least 1126 ordinary counties in modern China that were not located in higher-level political districts.Based on the premise of roughly clarifying the spatial and temporal distribution of “counties with newspapers”, the provincial units belonging to ordinary counties are divided into “more” and “less” in the port zone, and then the 1092 newspapers that have been confirmed as the first local newspaper titles and appearance time in their counties are divided into “organ newspapers” and “non-organ newspapers”.It can be concluded that in the entire spatial and temporal context of “modern China”, the “organ newspaper” has been the primary driving force behind the creation of “counties with newspapers” since at least 1912. This mechanism is particularly evident in the vast inland areas. On this basis, by subdividing the 858 newspapers that were both the first local newspapers and “organ newspapers” in their counties, it is also clear that the Communist Party of China had a significant advantage in terms of its ability and performance in creating “counties with newspapers”. In the historical context that “modern China” is a “large country lagging behind in development”, “urban newspapers” have not been able to effectively cover the grassroots areas of the country. The county-level newspapers carried a lot of importance in China’s newspaper distribution and reading network at this time. In this regard, the investigation of the growth trajectory of the “counties with newspapers” and its driving mechanism is also an attempt to practice the “China-based approach” in the writing of the “history of Chinese newspapers”.