A Study On The Development Of The Tongxian-level-district Since The Beginning Of The Province System

The tongxian-level-district is hierarchy (or hierarchies) of administrative division between the top-level-district and the county-level-district. It's from the Yuan Dynasty that the province serves as the top-level-district, and up to now, it has been more than seven hundred years. The evolution of the province-level and the county-level districts are less changed and more followed, whereas the tongxian-level-district is the priority needing adjusting in every period. The tongxian-level-district or the area-level-district in new China is the hotspot and the nodus in current research of the administrative division system. According to the National Economy and Social Development Eleventh Five-year Plan, we can deduce the imminence of the reformation on the area-level-district.Centered on the development of the tongxian-level-district, on the basis of latest theories and materials of geography, history, politics and economics etc., this paper describes the main structure and system of the tongxian-level-district from the Yuan Dynasty till the new China. Summing up some laws of the evolution of the tongxian-level district, the author tries to explore the mechanism of the change, especially the frequently adjusted area-level-district in PRC. Based on all this analyses and some demonstration researches, the author gives some pieces of advice on the way of the area-level-district and the route of the reform. This thesis consists of three main parts or nine chapters: introduction and the basic theory analysis; the evolution describing and the mechanism research; problem searching and reform route probing.Part I : Introduction and the basic theory analysis, range from the introduction to Chapter 2. In the introduction, the context of the research is presented, then some concepts are analyzed and the framework and main content of the whole thesis are summarized. Chapter 1, explicit review and systematic summary were conducted to go over the historical and academic research on the tongxian-level-district since the beginning of the province system. Chapter 2, influential factors, patterns of structure and discussion of the theories, at the same time, the theory of urbanization correlating with the reform of the administrative division are analyzed.Part II: The evolutoin describing and the mechanism research, range from Chapter 3 to Chapter 6. In Chapter 3, the evolution process of the tongxian-level-district is described according to dynastic sequence namely Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty. Chapter...