Abstract:

Rural settlements are the places of habitation, production and the living for people.In this paper,through landscape pattern analysis and GIS spatial analysis methods,the spatial pattern characteristics and influencing factors of rural settlements in Zhenjiang of Jiangsu Province were analyzed.Some conclusions are drawn as follows.Spatial pattern of rural settlements in Zhenjiang showed an eastwest differentiation.In the east region of Zhenjiang,rural settlements pattern presented the characteristic of small scale,dense distribution and regular morphology.Meanwhile, in the west region of Zhenjiang,rural settlements pattern presented the characteristic of large scale,sparse distribution and broken morphology.Influencing factors of rural settlements spatial pattern included terrain,economic,traffic,water system,and the distance of cultivated land.Through the analysis,settlement distribution had low altitude location orientation.Rural settlements plaques area of economic developed region was small,plaques density was large, but in the undeveloped region,rural settlements plaques area was great, plaques density was small.Rural settlements spatial distribution was most densely populated in the area away road at a distance of 500 meters and away water system at a distance of 1 000 meters.Rural settlements and cultivated lands spatial distribution had significant convergence. Currently,rural geography was a weak branch of human geography,especially with regard to theoretical development and the empirical research.This paper took Zhenjiang for example,analyzed spatial pattern and influencing factors of rural settlements,which not only could enrich rural settlement geography theory research, but also could provide the reference of rural settlements planning in Zhenjiang hilly area.