Nanchang Urban Morphology Study

Urban morphology is the reflection of space in city developing degree, stage and process. Urban morphology is changing with the city development and brings all kinds of city problem. For this reason, it is attached importance to scholars as studying the characteristic of urban space and basic rules about evolving theories in urban science. In this paper we take Nanchang as example and discuss the correlative theories and practical applications of urban morphology.The article is based on the introduction of basic concept of urban morphology, reviewed the latest development on the basic theory and point out some problems in the urban morphology since 1990 included the theory,affecting reasons,driving force,inscape and analysis approach of urban morphology. In fact the author studied the whirling urban morphology in Nanchang from 201B.C to 2002A.D.and analyzed the course of evolving about Nanchang urban space morphology and study evolving rules on Nanchang urban morphology, the author finds the urban have a experience from close to open, from tradition to modern and from single to complex.The author studies the evolution of urban morphology and structure of urban land use in 1905-2002 according to the theory of fractals, so the author finds that Nanchang urban morphology has self-similarity and typical evolving rules. It indicates that the fractal dimension of Nanchang's urban morphology tends to be increasing well. It indicates Nanchang urban morphology is changing well just to prove"urban morphology is evolving". The author find that the fractal dimension of every land use is less than that of the total urban morphology, which is only a theoretical deduction"the fractal dimension of urban morphology is always bigger than the fractal dimension of other land use morphology"before. From the viewpoint of spatial-temporal changing, the fractal dimension of Nanchang's urban morphology tends to be increasing, the fractal evolvement and fractal changing indicates characteristic of urban morphology on its self-evolvement. At last the author uses information Shannon to express the structure characteristics of land use and find the structure of land use in Nanchang urban area is developing to equilibrium state, the difference of area is decreasing and homogeneity of land structure is increasing.