A Study On The Spatial Differentiation Of Economies In The Yellow River Basin

Regional economic spatial structure is one of the key subjects of regional economics. River basin, as the special region related by water, shares the characteristics both of natural and economic. River basin economy is the regional economy that based on the river basin, and bears the characteristics of the integrality and relativity, the sectionality and differentiality, the hierarchy and network and the opening and dissipation etc. Cause of its special characteristics, river basin becomes the important part of the eco-zoning system for organizing and managing national economy naturally. There is a long development history in the Yellow River basin, and it has special status in the national spatial exploitation. Yellow river basin is always the hot topic of many studies besides regional economics, because of its complexity and importance.The research on the Yellow River basin economy always focused on economic development by the exploitation of resources. This article studied the Yellow river basin economy in the aspect of spatial difference of river basin economy in two spatial level including city and county. And this study focused on the status of spatial difference and its change, further the article analyzed the main factors that affect the spatial difference. The conclusions are as follows:1. The economic growth pace of the Yellow River basin is above the national level, meanwhile the difference between the sub-regions enlarged. In the period of the study, the gross domestic product of the river basin developed faster than the national average, and the gross domestic product per capita also overtook the national mean. The differences between the regions of the Yellow River basin enlarged, both absolutely and relatively. In the background of the difference enlarging, there were two convergence poles. In the period of 1990-2000, both the absolute difference and the relative difference between urban and country enlarged. In the period of 2000-2004, the absolute difference between urban and county enlarged, but the relative difference reduced. As the difference within the urban and the counties respectively, the difference within the urban is much greater than that within the counties.2. There was a great imbalance between the economy and population in the spatial distribution. The imbalance in the city level is greater than the county level. The city and county imbalance index increased 1.105 and 0.01 respectively in the period of 1990-2004. In detail, the imbalance increased in the period of 1990-2000, and then the imbalance abated in some degree. As the difference, the overall difference was mostly produced by the imbalance between the urban. Even after 2000, the imbalance between the urban kept on increasing.3. Along the watercourse, east better and sectionality were the characteristics of the economic spatial distribution in the Yellow River basin. The watercourse of the trunk and branch as axletree, buffer analysis was made on the subject map of GDP density. The GDP above mean regions mostly located in the buffer of 80km in the city level, and the county level was even more centralized, mostly located in the buffer of 50km. The lower reaches of the river was the high economic density section and well developed relatively, so it was the core of the Yellow River basin. The upriver and the middle reaches of the river were relatively undeveloped, so they were the periphery.4. The economic spatial distribution took on the form of"pole-axle-circle"pattern. Integrally, the relatively developed cities in the lower reaches of the river, such as Jinan and Zhengzhou, were the core of the whole river basin, and the resource-intensive cities or regional political centers in the upper river and the middle reaches of the river, such as Lanzhou, Baotou, Taiyuan, Xi'an, were the cores of the second level. The trunk and main branches, such as Weihe River and Fenhe River, were the axletree of economic development in the Yellow River basin. Around the relatively developed cores, there are circle-structure regions under the effect of convergency and diffusion. There were grads in the development level from the lower reaches of the river to the upper river. Compared the analysis result of the two spatial level, we found that, the form of"pole-axle-circle"pattern was more distinct in the county level, and it was also of better transition in the grads.5. There was great spatial overlap between the economic development and natural condition, traffic location, mutual effects between regions and investment. Natural condition was the necessity for the economic development, and it was also the basis of the economic spatial difference. Traffic location was the opportunity of economic development, and it strengthened the characteristics of along the watercourse and sectionality. Spatial mutual effects was the environment for economic development, it was also strengthened the core-periphery structure. Investment was the cause factor for economic development, and it had the Matthew effect, and it had the same effect on the economic spatial difference as the traffic location.