Population, Space And The City Development Of Hankow (1460～1930)

"Five hundred years ago it was a desolate island,five hundred years later it was a flourishing city."The famous saying described the growing-up course of Hankow from the 1460s to the 20th centunry.In the course there were interactive relationship between a city's three important elements,man,space and the city development.The paper tries to analysize the relation between them,and reveal the feature,the urbanization and modernization of the Hankow city.In the Chenghua period of Ming dynasty,Hankow which was located in the crossing of the Hanjiang river and the Yangtze river,depending on the advantaged situation for the boats to be moored and the convenient transport condition,attracted the people from almost 70 counties of 11 provinces to come here for living or settling down.Most of the moving people were businessmen or became businessmen.Although suffering from lots of flood,fire and drought during several hundred years, there was still a fast increase in population of Hankow.After the 1860s,with the construction of the concessions,thousands of foreigners nearly from 16 countries came to Hankow.During the transition of Hankow from a traditional society to a modern society,the occupation classification became various,professional and had the modern character.The conflict between people's gathering and the space narrowness which was because of the flood which often happened and the pools here and there,it made the construction of bams became an important method for the extent of the city's space,thus the city came to accomodate large numbers of people.According to the geographical and developing cause,Hankow was divided into several functional areas,such as the business area,the industrial area,the political area,and the dwelling area etc.The division became artifical and mutifunctional although at fast it was natural and simple,and the business area always occupied the most convinient situation at the crossing of the Hanjiang river and the Yangtze river.Any city is not isolated,and to now Hankow has a close relation with the countries surrouding it and the cities,counties in or out of Hubei province.Depending on the water transport along the Yangtze river and the Hanjiang river,as well as depending on the land transport from every direction,Hankow established an extensive ecnomic and social relation with other regions even with Japanese,the European and American countries after the 1860s.All these determined its center status in the middle Yangtze river region and the important economic status throughout the country.Further,the paper analysized the space's abstract aspect from the groups' founding and the mass media's appearance which were two important parts of the social network the hankow people lived in.From the two aspects,we can see the establishment of hankow immigrants' self-identity and the construction of the city's public space.Business group such as the guilds and modern trade associations was the main part of the social groups in Hankow,policital group and other social groups were the product of the development of modern democracy.The building of the groups was helpful to the immigrants' self-identity,and the mass media enhanced the interaction between the people,the people and the society.While the final establishment of Hankow's public space was after the 1911 Revolution,and in the constructing course there always existed contest between the government and the people in the public opinion.From the 1530s to the 1800s and after the 1860 were two fast-developing stages in Hankow city's histroy,during which the hankow people were also advancing,such as their business idea and custom were developed,the management to the town became more and more normal,citizens'self-control opinion was enhanced,and their life and entertainment style were changed etc.It was an interactive relation between the hankow city and the hankow people,and there always existed commercial smell during its transition from the traditional town to the modren city.To a certain degree,the quantity and quality of the population as well as the space size and composition also restriced the development of Hankow,thus Hankow should often adjust itself to find the way to be more perfect.