Abstract: The enhancement of public cultural service capacity is directly related to the construction of modern public cultural service system and is the key factor to promoting the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces from 2010 to 2016, this paper constructs an evaluation index system of the public cultural services capacity from the aspects of supporting force, pressure and regulatory force. On this basis, it conducts an empirical study whose results show that: (1) there are great differences in the supporting force, pressure and regulating force of public cultural services in 31 provinces, and whereas the internal structure, capacity level and the changing trend of capacity are also different. (2) such capacity is influenced by economic development, population size and residents’ education level, but it still depends to a large extent on the support and control level of public cultural services, the supply and output status of public cultural services, capital input and policy support; (3) on the whole, the capacity of public cultural services in the eastern region is better than that in the western region, whereas the latter is better than that in the central region. 

Key words: Public cultural service, Capacity, Local government, Evaluation index system, Regional difference