Urban Settlements And Social Development Of Qiantao Plain In The Qing Dynasty

Qiantao Plain is located in the central west of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It is now the most developed area in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, consisting of two major cities, Hohhot and Baotou. As the leading cities in Inner Mongolia, they will lead the whole Inner Mongolia region to a better tomorrow. However, the real development and exploration of this area began in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with large-scale developments mainly concentrated in the Qing Dynasty.This study is conducted from the perspective of the city’s history and geography, a combination of "temporal dimension" in historical studies and "spatial dimension" in geographical studies. The time span starts from the establishment of the Qing Dynasty to the period of new policies of the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1901) and the space area mainly locates at Qiantao Plain, today’s Hohhot and Baotou as the center and their surrounding counties. Through related local chorography, systematic exploration has been conducted in terms of the development of cities and surrounding towns in the area of the Qing Dynasty. On the basis of results of previous studies, this study describes the prerequisites for the formation of urban settlements, the developmental process, the situation of people’s social life and other aspects in detail. And on this basis, the study further discusses the characteristics and regularities in the urban development and construction of the area, and analyzes the causes. It further analyzes the influence of the urban development and construction of the area in the Qing Dynasty to the modern-day society and its implications to our contemporary urbanization.Besides the introduction part, this thesis is divided into four separate but interrelated chapters. The introduction part mainly introduces the significance of the study, the current situation of research, research methodology and the historical data sources. The first chapter focuses on a brief introduction of the historical evolution of the plain to show conditions of different historical periods from the time when there is a record of literature to the rule of the Qing Dynasty. According to the content of the related chorography, Chapter Two mainly explores the prerequisites for the formation of urban settlements of Qiantao Plain from the perspectives of the unique natural geographical environment and the ruling policies of the Qing Dynasty. The third chapter is the body part, which is composed of the following aspects: the land development and agricultural development within the plain, the increase in population and the enlargement of urban scale, the development of business and the improvement of the traffic conditions. Through a study of the above four aspects, this chapter explores the characteristics and regularities in the urban development and construction of Qiantao Plain area. Chapter Four is mainly concerned with the social functions of cities and towns in the area. The analysis is conducted from the perspectives of education and social security to explain that once cities and towns begun to take their shapes, social functions will be apparent and that the role of social functions in the development of the society as a whole is also self-evident.The formation and development of urban settlements of Qiantao Plain has its historical and practical significance as this has implications for how to promote urbanization and how to plan harmonious development of urban and rural areas as a whole.