Abstract:

Taking the 403 characteristic towns listed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development as research object, this research uses the spatial quantity model to analyze the spatial distribution of characteristic towns in terms of natural geographical attributes and socio-economic attribute. The results show that, in terms of natural geographical attributes, the characteristic towns, divided by the Heihe-Tengchong line, are densely distributed in the southeast China but sparsely in the northwest China, and the spatial distribution is of clustering type. The highly dense core area is at the junction of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. In terms of socio-economic attribute, the characteristic towns with high level of economic development, high level of urbanization and population size are mainly located in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and the urban agglomerations in Bohai Rim. However, the socio-economic development of most characteristic towns in the central and western regions needs to be improved. More than 45% of the characteristic towns lack radiance from central cities. Aiming at the present situation of spatial distribution of characteristic towns and from the perspective of regional spatial differentiation, this paper proposes some ideas on the development of characteristic town.

Key words: characteristic towns, distribution features, multidimensional analysis, spatial quantity model