A Study On The Urbanization Level Of Modern Jiangnan

Due to lack of evidence, previous studies on urbanization of Jiangnan(江南) could not have a clear concept of urban, which leads to incomplete researches. In addition to that, their arguments are partial because they are not based on whole region of Jiangnan but county level case studies. For the benefit of material access, this study will focus on1930s and1950s. With more materials, we could figure out a clearer concept of urban and fully discuss urbanization level of counties and the whole region.First of all, we discuss the urban morphology of a common small-medium city in the Republic of China from the perspective of land use, and point out that the meaning of city in modern western context does not apply to small-medium cities in traditional China. And this is helpful to understand the essential meaning of urbanization.Secondly, from the perspective of the spatial identification of township, we could say that the urbanization level of Jiangnan from previous studies is the urbanization level in administrative sense(政区化). With that awareness, we try to eliminate the influence of administrative division, and find out that urbanization level was overrated in the past.Finally, base on topographic maps in the Republic of China and Census Archive in1953, we discuss the1930s and1950s urbanization level of Jiangnan, which are33.37%and38.58%. Furthermore, we could tell that the population of big cities playing a decisive role, population of Shanghai and other major cities in1930s represents25.46%of the total population of Jiangnan, and accounts for33.09%in the1950s.