Study On History Of Cities In Southwest China

Under globalization and modernization, our cities are expanding at top speed. Meanwhile, it is not difficult to find the phenomenon of"arrogance and self-contempt"which reflects the lack of self-confidence and inner vibrancy. To attain self-confidence and self-reliance we should have a good grip of our history firstly. So the research on history of our cities is very important.While the broad zone, the various form and complex evolution brings difficulties to the research. If we pay attention to everything in it, we'll get nothing. Only by grasping the main problems, can the research get a whole understanding of the history of cities in Southwest China.This paper takes"southwest"as the geographical scope,"historic and cultural city"as the focal point,and urban morphology as the research object, unfolding the history of cities by chronological sequence and structure,analyzing the origin and evolution, characteristics and causes of urban morphology, then finding the evolution law of urban morphology which offering reference to city construction nowadays.The evolution of unban morphology is complicated, and in different phases there are different characteristics and influencing factors. So the paper divides it into 3 parts: the period of primary human settlements, the period of traditional urban morphology and the period of modern urban morphology, discussing the social history, evolution of urban morphology and the causes in each part comprehensively.The Pre-Qin Period is the original phase in the whole evolution. Basing on enormous documents, the paper represents the ancient background including the geographical environments, the social history, the structure of economy and culture, the nation and its migration, the route and so on; then, analyzes the evolution of primary human settlements from the ancient civilization, the habitation (caves and nests), the villages and the cities. The most important issue in this part is that in ancient times who lived in the cities of southwest china; why they built their cities in such manner; what characteristics and causes their settlements had.From Qin to Qing Dynasty, the traditional urban morphology had taken shape gradually. Because there are more documents than the previous period, the thesis could make a thorough investigation on the evolution, the structure and elements of traditional urban morphology. Firstly, it takes typical cities as central clue to reveal the evolution of traditional cities; then, analyzes the types and characteristics of the urban morphology elements such as shanshui pattern, outline, center, axis, framework and cluster; explores the pattern in which people built their cities; concludes the characteristics and factors influencing the cities in this period.In modern times, urban morphology is going through sharp transformation. After elaborating social history, morphology evolution of typical cities, the thesis finds the similarity in most modern cities in southwest china, so it concentrates on how and why the morphology transformation happened as a whole. It is the appearance of some new elements different from the previous phases, the reconstruction of urban space, the way and speed urban space expanding that brought about the transformation. The essential of the transformation is the change of economy and social structure, the rapid improvement of science and technology.Basing on the evolution of cities in southwest China, this paper sums up the influencing factors; gets the regulation that urban morphology is inheritable, and always fits the function, adapts the environment. Furthermore, it finds the mechanism explaining how all this happened; concludes the combined action of the influencing factors, mechanism and regulation.Finally, aiming at the phenomenon of feature decline in our cities, this paper analyses the reasons from a diachronic perspective, then, discusses the influence and value to which the historical urban morphology and experience will bring.