关键词: 人口收缩, 人口密度, 空间格局, 地理探测器, 黄土高原

Abstract:

The execution of the strategy of west China development accelerated social and economic development in the Loess Plateau region. Unbalanced regional development has induced population migration, which has triggered a new phenomenon of population shrinkage in the western region. A population shrinkage index, geostatistical analysis, and geographical detectors based on resident population data in 2005 and 2015 were used to study the population shrinkage and regional differentiation in the Loess Plateau at prefecture-level cities and county scales. Based on these geographic scales, 45 prefecture-level cities in the Loess Plateau were classified by population change, revealing differences and mechanisms of population shrinkage driving forces in the Loess Plateau. We explore the driving factors of population shrinkage in the Loess Plateau from a socio-economic perspective, analyze the universality and specificity of population shrinkage, and enrich the research on mesoscale urban shrinkage in less developed regions in China. The results are as follows: (1) Population shrinkage in the Loess Plateau region is universal, and the proportion of population shrinkage is higher under county- and prefecture-level administrative units. The shrinkage rate of county-level administrative units was 34.49%, and that of prefecture-level administrative units was 22.22%. There is a bias in identifying a shrinking population at a single geographic scale, and the proportion of prefecture-level cities with at least one shrinking county-level unit accounts for 68.89% of all prefecture-level cities. At the prefecture-level city level, all provincial capital cities are shrinking, and general prefecture-level cities have high shrinkage rates. At the county level, municipal districts, county-level cities, and autonomous counties have low shrinkage rates. The number of general counties with a shrinking population is 90, accounting for 82.57% of shrinking county-level units. (2) Population shrinkage conforms to the core-periphery model at the regional-provincial-prefecture-level scale. Core area (cities) populations are concentrated, and marginal areas (counties) are losing population. The Guanzhong Plain and Ningxia Plain have become core areas of population concentration, and the Liupan Mountain District has become a concentrated population loss area; the provincial capital cities have stronger population concentration capabilities, and the ordinary prefecture-level cities have population shrinkage. Specific to the prefecture-level cities, the population will be concentrated in the municipal districts, and the population of peripheral counties will shrink. (3) Differences in economic development levels and imbalances in urban and rural development have become the main incentives for population agglomeration and loss in the Loess Plateau. The contraction of prefecture-level cities is driven by urbanization and industrialization, leading to insufficient comprehensive development capacity; prefecture-level cities are in a period of rapid socio-economic development, and the uneven distribution of internal factors leads to internal partial shrinkage. Coordinated regional development for resource allocation to different types of prefecture-level cities and ensuring a relatively fair society are issues that governments and planners should reflect on and pay attention to.

Key words: population shrinkage, population density, spatial pattern, geographic detectors, the Loess Plateau