On The Economic Relations Among Prefecture Cities In China From The Perspective Of Railway Network

As open complex systems of economy, cities can hardly survive and develop without the interaction with other regions. Considered as the internal requirement and necessary condition of city’s economic development, the interrelations among cities, including the flow of such production factors as human and resources as well as the industrial connections, are due to the territorial division of labour, and supported by well developed transportation network and modernized communication facility. The higher relation intensity among cities in a region is supposed to be the motive power of the development and evolution of the whole region, and the precondition of the formation of metropolis or urban agglomeration in the region. With the acceleration of economic globalization and regional economic integration, the interrelations of various socio-economic phenomenon within a region or among regions are becoming increasingly close and complicated. Therefore, the spatial relation and interaction of regions play an essential role in regional geography and economic geography, and the study on economic relations among cities attracts more concern and research by scholars of many fields from different perspectives.Having begun with theoretical discussion on spatial and functional relations among cities, this paper then makes quantitative calculation and analysis such as economic relation intensity and urban flow intensity based on the railway network, in order to clarify the spatial pattern of economic relations amongst287prefecture cities of China.The content of this study can be divided into four parts:Part1includes research progress of economic relations both domestic and aboard, in which related points of view and deficiency are concluded; Part2firstly presents relative concepts of economic relations among cities, then makes a research on the associated models; Part3is the empirical study of economic relations, both spatial and functional, among prefecture cities in China from the perspective of railway network, which firstly ensure the direction of major economic relations among cities by calculating economic relation intensity, then measure and analyze the change of outer service of cities by computing urban flow intensity and also through which urban scale grade are classified; Part4makes a conclusion finally.The result proves as follows:the spatial relations of China’s prefecture cities based on railway network have remarkable differences, with the general spatial pattern that cities are close-related in the east while relatively loosen in the mid and west; from the perspective of railway network, economic relations among cities in China are becoming increasingly close; the radiation centers caused by economic interrelations of China’s cities based on railway network are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu; the spatial pattern of economic relations among cities of China based on the railway network shows a high level of similarity to urban agglomerations.