The Research Of Traditional Villages’ Spatial Form In The Central Plains

Henan Province is located in the Central Plains hinterland with rich and varied topography and the heavy local culture of Central Plains, and development of traditional villages in Central Plains has been continuing its course slowly for thousands of years. From the viewpoint of historical development trajectory, villages, as bridges and carriers between people and the land showing up through physical form and cultural heritage, convey to us a wealth of information about nature, history, society, politics, culture, ethic, economy as well as other technology information. At the same time, traditional villages which are the weakest units consisting of human settlements show the flexibility and variability in the process of development and growth. Villages always interact with the surrounding geographical environment and cultural spheres; we can easily identify the geographical and cultural differences through spatial form of villages.With the rapid development of modern urbanization, traditional villages in Central Plains are unable to bear the economic impact; the villages seem to be at a loss faced with the social upheaval. The traditional villages rooted in farming civilization already lost its base of the existing environment. People’s traditional way of life in the village, the village shape, spatial structure, cultural heritage etc are obviously lagging behind. We are short of research on regional specialties and traditional villages human settlements.The main purpose of the article analyses the differences, in depth and systematically, of traditional village spatial form between geographical characteristics and representation in Central Plains. From a viewpoint of geographical zoning, the typical traditional villages were selected. Two aspects of traditional villages in Central Plains were focused, firstly, on the relevance of the traditional villages to geographical features in different geographical zone, and secondly, on differences of traditional villages in different regions. As a starting point of the dominant factor of geographical features which have influence on villages’ spatial form, from aspects of villages’ location, shape, space, courtyard, geographical features and cultural characteristics were summed up. Types and Causes of village space formation are analyzed, and traditional villages’ internal mechanism in Central Plains is explored.This thesis includes three sections; the first section presents the notion and the theoretical framework of this thesis. Chapter I is the introduction, which first summarizes the traditional villages’ living situationas, and then it unveils the purpose and significance, the subjects, the intentions and methods of the projects. The contents and framework of the project establishing traditional village special form research framework which is mainly from the village survey methods, form classification, the village of spatial analysis are presented as well.The second section describes traditional villages in Central Plains geographical zoning and regional expression of traditional villages’ spatial form in various regional zones in Central Plains consisting of Chapter II,ChapterⅢ, IV, V, VI, and VII. Aiming at the regional expression in different geographical zones such as the western Henan, the southwestern Henan, the southern Henan, the northern Henan, and the central Henan of the traditional villages, it focuses on the regional and human factors which impacts local villages, especially the decisive factors affecting villages spatial form, and the correspondence between geographical and human factors and villages spatial form.The third sections is about geographical differences of traditional villages in Central Plains on the basis of results from the second section, and horizontal comparison from the investigation of traditional villages, villages shape, villages spacial form etc in different geographical zones.The last section summarizes the main conclusion as well as the project’s prospect. Traditional villages are inseparable from their geographical survival soil, and are also inseparable from the same social spheres in its construction. Traditional villages are diverse and complex, so their development in the future will be inevitably faced with the road full of colorful vitality.