A Study On Urban Image Of Nanning

With the construction of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and the opening anddevelopment of Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone, these both promote Nanninginto a new historical height, and Nanning’s urban construction needs to get to a newlevel. Urban image research method is one of modern urban spatial structure researchones, and also one of the most common methods in modern urban planning and designin western countries. By using urban image theory in researching Nanning, we notonly can learn the urban spatial structure of Nanning, but also provide basic theory forurban planning and design.The paper, from residents’ spatial cognition’s point of view, investigates urbanimage of Nanning by using questionnaire survey and interview and drawing cognitivemap. It analyzes urban image elements’ characteristics and the overall image structureand explores the development of Nanning residents’ spatial cognition on the basis ofcalculating survey results. The research indicates (1)road image focuses in the expressring road, showing in grids; in addition, its spatial distribution is unbalanced, mainlyin the north of Yongjiang River.(2)Boundary image displays a spatial structure of“circles plus lines”, and Yongjiang River, South Lake and Qingxiu Mountain are themain natural boundaries; railway lines and ring roads are the main artificialboundaries.(3)Regional image takes Chaoyang Business District as the center,consists of concentrated business districts, adjacent education areas, linear politicaladministrative regions and groups of industrial zones.(4)Node elements distributealong crossroads, chiefly along the main roads in the north of Yongjiang River.(5)Marks mainly distribute in the Chaoyang Road and along Minzu Road.(6)Theoverall urban image takes network roads as the skeleton, Yongjiang River and expressring road as the main boundaries, consisting of diverse functional areas and variousnodes and a few marks distribute among them.(7) The residents of Nanning’scognitive level is different, and their cognition on roads, boundaries and regions is in the middle of cognitive expansion phase, while on nodes and marks is in low stage,that’s to say, the residents’ spatial cognitive level is low.At last, the paper gives suggestion that government officials should strengthenunban image of Nanning city from two aspects, that’s, strengthening the overall urbanimage characteristics and urban image elements, by following multi-levels andcharacteristics’ principle.