Research On The Spatial Form Of The Seat City In The Middle Reaches Of The Han River In Ming And Qing Dynasties

The middle reaches of the Han River occupied its principal corner of Central Plains’culture and military in history, and in Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was also the keyhistorical period of the cities’ development in the Han River’s middle reaches, the depthand breadth of the urban social and economic development all surpassed the previousdynasty. The urban spatial form is the important reflection of the urban developingprocess in outward manifestation, the city’s spatial form in the middle reaches of HanRiver is its important foundation of modern and contemporary urban development, inMing and Qing Dynasties.The middle valley of Han River with its river geographic, social and culturalcharacteristics carries the development of these cities and also lays a close correlationbetween them. To explore the urban spatial form of the middle reaches of Han River inMing and Qing Dynasties from watershed perspective has important practical significanceon the in-depth study of modern urban development, cultural heritage and the protectionand renewal of the historic town. This topic is aimed at the government, state and the seatof county of Han River’s middle reaches in Ming and Qing Dynasties, primarily from theperspective of three scales of urban spatial form that respectively are the large, themedium and the small to analyze: the development of the urban system and its groupspace form; the urban spatial form’s classification study of the seat city(ranked by theadministrative level), the characteristics of seat city’s urban spatial forming factors, aswell as the research of spatial forming factors and the spatial form of two typical duplexgovernance "city"; the spatial forming study of three typical functional blocks. The thesisis divided into seven chapters and each chapter’s major elements are as follows:The first chapter is the introduction. It describes the origin of thesis topics, themeaning and purpose of the research, the content and methods of the study, the thinkingframework of the research, the possible innovation and futures of the thesis, thediscrimination and definition of the middle reaches of Han River and the seat cities in Ming and Qing Dynasties and the concept of urban spatial form, under the general idea ofcombing the studies of Han river valley’s settlement pattern, the research object of thisproject is defined as the seat city of governments, sates and counties in Han River’smiddle reaches in Ming and Qing Dynasties.The second chapter mainly analyzes and researches the related background study ofthe seat cities’ development in the middle reaches of the Han River in Ming and QingDynasties, which includes the natural geography and climate characteristics in HanRiver’s middle reaches, and which focuses on the river changes and the awarded facilitiesin that area; the city traffic regional conditions in historical period of the Han River ‘smiddle reaches; the background and conditions of the city’s socio-cultural and economicdevelopment in the middle reaches of Han River in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and thebasis of the region’s agricultural and handicraft foundation and the commerce guild systemas well.Chapter three is under a large-scale perspective, to research the development of theurban system and its group spatial form in Han River’s middle reaches of Ming and QingDynasties. The focus is to analyze and sort out the developing stage of the urban systemand its group spatial characteristics in Han River’s middle reaches of Ming and QingDynasties; the group spatial form within the city and county or between the county in HanRiver’s middle reaches in Ming and Qing; and to take the town system within Xiangyanggovernment affairs as an example, to investigate the pattern of the urban system’s spatialform, and finally to summarize the dynamic mechanism of its development.Chapter four, under a mesoscale perspective, to classify and study the urban spatialform of the11seat cities in governments, sates and counties of the Han River’s middlereaches in Ming and Qing Dynasties. This chapter has mainly clarified the materialscattered among a large number of Chronicles literature and ancient material, combinedwith the aerial map and other urban terrain data, as well as the site mining and interviewof the remaining construction or other means, using morphological deduction, analysis toexplore the entire and inner spatial form of the11seat cities in governments, sates andcounties of the Han River’s middle reaches in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The fifth chapter is to research the characteristic of the urban spatial form’s elementsof the seat cities in Han River’s middle reaches of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Based on theprevious chapter’s classification and study of the overall spatial form, to make horizontalcomparison and induction analysis of the boundary wall morphology, the streets structureand morphology, the major function zoning and morphology and the landmark nodemorphology of the11seat cities in governments, sates and counties, meanwhile, to sum upthe major influencing factors of the seat cities’ forming characteristics.Chapter is for the study of two typical duplex seat cities’ spatial morphology of theHan River’s middle reaches in Ming and Qing Dynasties. To center on the formation andevolution process of Xiangyang the prefectural city-Fan urban city, Guanghua County-Laohekou town, the two duplex spatial form cities, as well as a comparative study of thetwo governance "City" and town in spatial form in late Qing Dynasty. Due to the specialnature of the modern history’s development, the connection between Ming and Qingdynasties and the contemporary era is indirect. To contact with the contemporary era, thischapter is to investigate the spatial form’s evolution of the two cities, during which thetime is from the early Ming Dynasty to the1980s, in which the discussion of evolutionstage is still based on the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Chapter seven aims at the research of the typical functional blocks’ spatial form in theseat cities of Han River’s middle reaches in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Blocks orfunctional building groups that have larger impact on the urban pattern and are betterpreserved are selected to be morphologically analyzed, which mainly include theXiangyang palace buildings in governing city, the Nanyang local government buildings inthe seat city and Gucheng old streets in city blocks etc. To analyze its relationship withurban space, the spatial morphological characteristics of architecture, as well as thetransformation of the status quo.