China's Population In 1936-2000 Time And Space Distribution And Cause Analysis

As population serves as both supply (labor) and demand (consumers) in an economic system, the spatial distribution of population represents that of human settlement and activities. Analysis of changing population distribution patterns over time is a starting point for examining development patterns in a region or country, and thus a natural topic well suited for geographic information systems (GIS) analysis.Based on the multi-epoch demographic data of China from 1936 to 2000 (specifically 1936,1946,1953,1964,1982,1990 and 2000), this study uses various techniques of GIS-based spatial analysis to examine the spatio-temporal patterns of population distribution in China and possible underlying forces. The thesis is composed of two major parts. The first part examines the geographic patterns of population distribution over time by the GINI coefficients of population density, spatial autocorrelation structure, the migrating track of population gravity centers, population standard deviation ellipses, the rate of population growth and spatial correlation analysis. The second part uses the GIS to integrate natural environment and social economic data to facilitate correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis.Major findings from the research can be summarized as:(1) China’s population distribution is heavily uneven with a high density in the southeast and a low density in the northwest, and densely populated areas have expanded significantly over time.(2) The aforementioned population distribution pattern has largely been stable over the study period, and has increasingly been tilted towards west.(3) China’s population distribution has been affected by historical events and major governmental policies such as the war, expanded land cultivation, forced urban-rural migration from the Cultural Revolution, the "Third-Line Development" in the pre-reform era, recent Economic Reform and Open Door policy, family planning, etc.(4) China’s population distribution exhibits a strong positive autocorrelation, i.e., high-density areas tend to cluster together, and so do low-density ones.(5) The variation of population density can be explained by elevation, climate, water resources, land types, and other environmental factors as well as some socio-economic factors.