From Distinction To Integration :a Study Of Landscape Characteristics And Generative Mechanism Of Historic Villages In Southeast Chongqing

Located at the junction of Hubei,Hunan,Chongqing,and Guizhou,southeastern Chongqing connects the southwestern mountains with the Central China Plain.The region is characterized by its multi-ethnic inhabitants of Tujia,Miao,and Han people,and serves as a crucial transportation corridor and hub between the Bachu area.With its diverse traditional village landscape Southeastern Chongqing is endowed with a beautiful geography including mountains and dams,the differentiated natural resources and climate,the ethnic characteristics of multi-ethnic inhabitation,and the regional development history from ’’barbarization’’ to ’’sinicization’’.The relatively isolated traffic and backward economic development contribute to retaining the rich and original ecological landscape of this area.To clarify the landscape characteristics of traditional villages at the border between the Tujia,Han and Miao ethnic groups and explain the generative mechanism of the diverse landscape phenomena,research methods such as field surveys,data statistics,GIS analysis,and comparative analysis of watersheds are employed in this study in a systematic analysis of the landscape characteristics of traditional villages in southeastern Chongqing.The research idea features ’’the village landscape as the object,the administrative region as the boundary,the differentiation of watersheds as the clue,and the ethnic relationship as the logic’’.With the hierarchy and generative concept of the village landscape system as the research framework,factors from four perspectives of natural ecological landscape,economic production landscape,group settlement landscape,and family house landscape of traditional villages in the southeastern Chongqing are extracted and classified in this paper.Comparative analyses of different watersheds are conducted in terms of geographic unit,main industry,spatial pattern,street pattern,cultural space,and house forms.Combining typical case studies with quantitative data analysis,the differentiation characteristics of village landscape characteristics in southeastern Chongqing are comprehensively explored from north to south with watersheds as the clue.According to the historical development process ’’from isolation to integration’’ of the Tujia,Han,and Miao people,the driving factors,pressure effects,landscape conditions,restrictions,cultural responses of three phases of the emergence,formation,and maturity of landscape characteristics are investigated and the generative mechanism of the characteristics extracted.The main conclusions presented in this paper are as follows: 1.The landscape characteristic serves as a significant research category of the system composition and generative mechanism of traditional village landscape.2.The traditional village landscape in southeastern Chongqing is affected by both geographical barrier and ethnic contact.3.The village landscape characteristics are formed by the natural ecological landscape and the economic production landscape as the primary elements and by the group settlement landscape and the family house landscape as the secondary elements.4.The landscape characteristics of the traditional villages in southeastern Chongqing feature watershed-related differentiation as a whole with a gradual change from north to south.The barrier effect of mountains and the channel effect of rivers are the main factors influencing cultural differentiation and communication in southeastern Chongqing.5.Based on the perspective of watershed differentiation,the landscape characteristics of traditional villages in southeastern Chongqing are divided into two large cultural areas and five landscape characteristic areas with the mountain range between Maobagai and Guangyangai as the boundary.6.The diversified landscape characteristics of traditional villages in southeastern Chongqing are the result of the heterogeneity of causality in different historical phases: In the emergence phase the landscape characteristics are dominated by the natural appropriate mechanism of the dual barriers of mountains and rivers and ethnic isolation.In the formation phase the landscape characteristics are dominated by the resource competition mechanism under the local exchanges between Tujia and Han groups.In the maturity phase the landscape characteristics are dominated by the social transformation mechanism after the comprehensive ethnic integration.7.The landscape characteristics in southeastern Chongqing accord with the law of ’’point-axis’ ’ gradual diffusion,and are the interaction result of self-organization adaptation and other-organization selection.In this study quantitative studies of the village landscape in southeast Chongqing were conducted applying methods such as GIS analysis and statistics.The landscape characteristics of traditional villages in the border areas of the Tujia,Miao and Han ethnic groups were systematically explored and explained and the generative mechanism of the diversified traditional village landscape characteristics in the area identified.The research results will help enrich and improve the theoretical framework of traditional villages,enhance the construction of human settlements and landscape protection in ethnic areas,and provide references for the protection of traditional villages and the construction of local landscape in southeastern Chongqing.