Objective  To estimate the prevalence and influencing factors of successful aging among permanent elderly residents in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province and to provide a reference for community health institutions in improving their services for successful aging of the elderly.

  Methods  Using convenient sampling, we recruited 617 permanent local residents aged ≥ 60 years in a tertiary hospital, two nursing homes and two communities in Guangzhou city and conducted a questionnaire survey among the elderly from July to December 2018.

  Results  For the 594 respondents with valid information, the mean total score of successful aging was 164.74 ± 21.69 and the average score for all successful aging items was 4.22 ± 0.56, with the mean domain scores of 4.35 ± 0.92 for health autonomy, 4.45 ± 0.83 for economic security, 4.21 ± 0.75 for life adaptation, 3.93 ± 0.80 for social and kinship relationships, 3.89 ± 0.88 for learning, and 4.63 ± 0.67 for family, respectively; 443 (74.6%) of the respondents were assessed as having successful aging based on an average score of greater than 3.95 for all the items for successful aging. Unconditional multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the respondents with following characteristics were more likely to have successful aging: with the education of senior high school, living with spouse, having a personal monthly income of 3 000 yuan (RMB) and more, with a general or good self-rated health, and residing in nursing homes or in communities; while the respondents with rural registered permanent residence were less likely to have successful aging.

  Conclusion  The level of successful aging is relatively high and mainly influenced by education, registered residence, personal monthly income, self-rated health, and living place among permanent elderly residents in Guangzhou city.