Research On Mazu Culture’s Geographic Process And Spacial Influence

Mazu culture is a kind of folk culture, which is based on Mazu belief. Mazu culture that originated from Meizhou Island in song dynasty becomes the global Chinese people’s common spiritual beliefs now. In 2009 the Mazu belief was included in the list of world intangible cultural heritage and was highly concerned by people at home and abroad. Mazu culture is a living culture, which has thousands years of history. Further research on Mazu culture is conducive to the further development and utilization of marine resources, thus expanding the space of marine development, boosting the coordinated development of regional economy and promoting the construction of marine power.Combining the domestic and foreign relevant literatures and field investigation, in theory, the human- land relationship theory, the cultural route theory and the cultural space theory, with the use of literature analysis, 3S(RS/GIS/GPS) analysis method, questionnaire method and interview method, the article has developed the Mazu culture’s geographic migration process and spatial influence in Fujian province.This article mapped the distribution of Mazu temples from the Song dynasty to the Republic of China period in Fujian province, the maps about Mazu temples and geographical factors in Putian city. In addition, with a large number of first-hand information, the main research conclusions are as follows:(1) The propagation law of Mazu culture from the coastal to the inland in the later diffusion. And from the perspective of the type of cultural diffusion, Mazu culture spread belongs to the relocation diffusion in large and mesoscale scale. On the contrary, it belongs to contact diffusion and contagious diffusion.(2) There is the law of diminishing space between Mazu culture and geographical environment. The number of Mazu temple and elevation is negatively correlated, besides the decline rate is about 3. River’s sphere of influence of Mazu temples is about 2400 meters. The distance between each additional 100 meters, reduces 2 to 3 mazu temples. The towns which Located in northwest and south of the Putian has the highest per capita share of mazu temples and good faithful foundation.(3) From the point of the perception survey of residents, The Fujian central coast has the greatest Mazu culture’s space effect; the second is the southern coastal region. Mazu culture’s political, cultural, and ecological impact is relatively good in western region of Fujian, little impact on the economy. In the north of Fujian, the space influence of Mazu culture is limited to some villages that inhabited by the descendants of immigrants. Furthermore, Mazu culture’s localization is not thorough here and has the minimum space effect. It also has the law of diminishing space, and the western region was the most obvious, the others decreased slowly.(4) For solving the problems of coordinated development, excessive commercialization and believers reduction in Fujian, some advices from the regional cooperation, urban and rural planning, to cultural heritage are also proposed.