Abstract: Understanding the law of spatial settlement of oasis villages and its influence mechanism can provide a basis for the settlement management and planning in the process of the beautiful village construction as well as the implementation of the Rural Revitalization strategy in the oasis.The scale,agglomeration degree and distribution characteristics of oasis rural settlements in Ebinur Basin,Xinjiang Province were analyzed using the methods of GIS technology,measurement of statistical and field survey.The results showed that the oasis villages in Ebinur Basin were clustered in small scale,75.8 percent of the villages'areas were 1.4 hm²,far below the average value of 7.3 hm².In Xinjiang,there are two systems,one is the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) and the other is the local system with an obvious difference in the scale of rural settlements.Compared with the local system,the development history of XPCC was shorter,so the number of its rural settlements was smaller.The XPCC implemented water-saving irrigation and enterprise management mode to improve the agricultural production and management,and because of this large-scale industrial agriculture,most villages in XPCC were cold spots through Getis-Ord Gi^*,which means the scale of rural settlements was small.While in local townships,though large contractors had contracted the land for agricultural cultivation,the rural settlements still maintained a considerable quantity and scale on the basis of small-scale peasant economy.The density overall was very low and the relative high density area was dispersive.The significant natural features were strongly presented in oasis rural settlements:villages distributed in alluvium and diluvium fan plains were of middle and low density in the shape of fan beaming type; on the sides of the river,the rural settlements were of low density in the shape of linear type as well as of middle-high density in the shape of stripe type;in Jinghe Basin,the rural settlements were of high density in the shape of block type.The effects of elevation,river,topography,transportation and policy system on the oasis rural settlements were analyzed.The buffer analysis of the elevation,river and road showed the rural settlements were mainly distributed under 800 m sea level,within 2 km from the river,1 km from the road,and deeply affected by the policy system.It concluded that the rural settlements were more subject to human behaviors,including built roads,government's policies such as Construction of Beautiful Countryside,Counterpart Support for Xinjiang,Poverty Alleviation Policy,local investment attraction and so on.However,the pattern of rural settlements and its further development was limited to a great extent in Ebinur Basin due to its special topography with high mountains surrounded on three sides of the region (the west,north and south),a large elevation difference and two rivers (Bortala River and Jinghe River) running through the entire area.Improving local economy development level and strengthening the advantages of transportation might be the effective means in alleviating the limitations.

Key words: oasis, rural settlements, spatial pattern, distribution characteristics, Ebinur Basin