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Arid Land Geography ›› 2026, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (8): 1711-1723.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2025.486

• Urban and Rural Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Evolutionary characteristics and driving mechanisms of population distribution patterns in townships along the Yellow River Basin

LUO Qing1,2,3(), ZANG Yongting1,2,3, WANG Yunlong1,2,3, WANG Shanbing1,2,3, LIU Le1,2,3   

  1. 1 School of Urban and Rural Planning, Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou 450046, Henan, China
    2 Research Center for Coordinated Economic Development of the Yellow River Basin, Zhengzhou 450046, Henan, China
    3 Laboratory of Evolutionary Analysis and Simulation for Urban-Rural Socioeconomic Systems, Zhengzhou 450046, Henan, China
  • Received:2025-08-21 Revised:2025-09-04 Online:2026-08-25 Published:2026-08-21

Abstract:

Fine-scale analyses of population changes are theoretically and practically significant important for deepening the understanding of human-land system coupling mechanisms and optimizing regional development policies. Drawing on the data of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Chinese national population censuses, this study systematically analyzes the evolutionary characteristics and driving mechanisms of spatial distribution patterns of township-level populations in the Yellow River Basin from 2000 to 2020, using comprehensive methods such as GIS spatial analysis, standard deviation ellipse, and geographical detection. The results indicate the following: (1) The population density distribution in the Yellow River Basin exhibits a pattern of showing high values in the east and low ones in the west, which is in alignment with the distribution pattern of economic development levels. During the study period, township population shrinkage was pronounced, with 5530 townships experiencing population decline, accounting for 59.89% of the total township population. (2) The population distribution displays a strong spatial autocorrelation. During the study period, there were 935 high-high type townships and 2406 low-low ones. The hotspots of population growth expanded from north to south and from east to west, and the cold spots of population growth formed a stable pattern of central collapse. The center of gravity of the population distribution was in Jincheng City, Shanxi Province, and it exhibited a slow northward migration trend. (3) Geographical detector analysis reveals that the synergistic effects of natural geographical conditions, levels of economic development, and locational factors were the key mechanisms shaping the population distribution pattern in the townships of the Yellow River Basin, with stronger synergistic effects observed between natural and locational factors. The dominant influencing factors vary across regions, and per capita arable land area exerted the most significant constraint effect on population distribution.

Key words: influencing factors, geographical detector, population spatial distribution, spatial pattern evolution, Yellow River Basin