A Study Of The Waterside Settlements During The Transition From Water-route Mode To Land-route Mode In The Li-Xia-He Region

Chinese traditional settlements are facing the impact of the transition from the traditional transport-ation mode to modern transport mode in recent modernization process, which lead to a result of the spatial structure transformation in settlements. Lixiahe, which located in the north of Jiangsu province, was shaped with a complex hydrological environment due to special historical and geographical reasons. The human settlements in this region formed a water-suitable pattern and a complete water-route transport system. On the other hand, the changing water also leads to a relatively closed area. In modern times, with the gradual introduction of land transport mode, settlement pattern of Lixiahe is slowly changed. Not only the contradictions between water-routes and land-routes, but also the main features of settlements structural and space form are preserved in the region, making it an ideal case of research.In this thesis, the author focuses on the evolution pattern of the settlement space in this particular region under the perspective of changing transportation modes, and combines historical geography spatial and technical analysis to research on both region and settlement. In the macro-perspective of region, this thesis researches on the evolution of water to land transition process to restore the overall spatial network from a diachronic perspective. By selecting the most characteristic settlements in the network, the paper continues to analyse the characteristics of the changing settlement patterns during the evolution caused by transportation change in the micro-perspective. By extracting the prototype and summarizing the evolution mode, this thesis compares and confirms changes in settlement space. In this thesis, the author made a detailed analysis of two water-dominated island settlements-Shagou and zhongbao. In the Republic of China, the two towns have a similar mode of transportation (the water-route-led) and functions (temples, granaries, waterfront commercial, docks, etc.), but due to their different locations, different functional demands came into being, thus formed different spatial organization. However, with the introduction of modern highway traffic, the two settlements were assimilated. The original internal water-way disappeared in the spatial organization which is integrated due to the popularity of the land-way. This thesis argues that Lixiahe settlements need to be understood at both the regional level and the spatial level. In this view, this thesis conducted a preliminary exploration and it provided data and methodological foundation for further study.