Temporal-Spatial Evolution Patterns of Population Urbanization and Land Urbanization in China

Abstract The purpose of this paper is tantamount to explore the dynamic evolution and spatial distribution pattern of urbanization in China from the perspectives of population urbanization and land urbanization. The methods used in this paper are the kernel density estimation and the standard deviations ellipse. The results of the study: 1) The general level of China’s population urbanization and land urbanization has been continuously improved. The inter-provincial differences in population urbanization are gradually narrowing which land urbanization continue to increase. However, land urbanization is higher than population urbanization in terms of growth rate, the degree of polarization and inter-provincial differences. 2) The gravity center of China’s population urbanization is located in Henan province, the direction of movement is generally moving southward to southward;The gravity center of land urbanization is located in the junction of northeastern Anhui province and northwestern Jiangsu province, the direction of movement is generally moving eastward to westward. 3) The main trend of China’s population urbanization spatial distribution is roughly the same as that of “Hu Huanyong Line”, which is the dividing line of population density in China,the spatial differences are mainly reflected in the northwest-southeast direction, the spatial-temporal differences are more obviously driven by the population distribution. The main trend of spatial distribution of land urbanization is roughly the same as that of the developed eastern coastal economic belt, the spatial differences are mainly reflected in the east-west direction, and the spatial-temporal differences are more obviously driven by the economic development level. 4) China’s land urbanization shows more obvious spatial agglomeration than population urbanization. The spatial development of population urbanization shows a trend of shrinkage and polarization, while the spatial development of land urbanization shows a trend of expansion and discretization. In conclusions, the development of China’s new-type urbanization should not only resolve the contradiction of imbalance between the population urbanization and land urbanization, but also resolve the contradiction of between regional development differences, to achieve the intrinsic coupling and spatial equilibrium between population urbanization and land urbanization.