Recently, digital economy in social science has become increasingly significant. A well-constructed evaluation structure could generally and promptly describe and reveal its overall social digitalization development. Building on existent researches, this paper improves the evaluation system, which comprises four first-level indicators and thirty-one second-level indicators. Notably, this paper innovatively incorporates higher education into digital innovation of the evaluation. The Entropy method is utilized to assign weights to various indicators in an objective way, with employing the TOPSIS approach to prioritize the development of digital economy in places based on the closeness to the ideal solution. By analysing related data related from 31 provinces in China between 2017 to 2021, this paper greatly finds: Firstly, the development of digital economy vary significantly across provinces, with most provinces at a relatively poor level, indicating considerable potential for overall growth; Secondly, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong consistently ranked in the top four from 2017 to 2021, reflecting their specific development attributes and their emphasis on digital economy; Thirdly, significant disparities exist both between regions and among provinces. Consequently, this paper suggests establishing a comprehensive national digital economy development plan, formulating region-specific digital economy policies tailored to local conditions, and encouraging leading provinces to actively share experiences with other provinces.