South China's Guangdong province invested 518.67 billion yuan ($73.31 billion) in real estate development in the first five months of this year, ranking first in the country, Sina Finance reported on Monday.

East China's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces ranked second and third for investment in real estate development in the first five months of this year at 496.49 billion yuan and 108.95 billion yuan, respectively.

The growth rate in real estate development investment of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region took the lead in the whole country, with 45 percent in the same period according to numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Another 23 regions' growth rate in real estate development investment outperformed the national level from January to May this year.

About eight regions invested over 200 billion yuan in real estate development, 11 invested about 100 billion yuan in real estate development and 12 regions' investment in real estate industry was below 100 billion yuan in the first five months of this year.

Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics show national real estate development investment was 4,592 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.3 percent, in the first five months.

China's real estate industry is accelerating its recovery at a high speed. From January to May, the transaction area of residential land in 100 cities across the country was 213.65 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 6.2 percent and narrowing from 8.7 percent in the first four months, according to data from Shanghai Yiju Real Estate Research Institute.