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Arid Land Geography ›› 2026, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (1): 176-185.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2025.095

• Regional Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatial pattern evolution characteristics and influencing factors of logistics enterprises in China at prefecture-level city scale

JI Xiaofeng1,2,3(), LI Zixin1,2,3, CAO Rui1,2,3, LI Wu1,2,3, CHEN Fang2,3,4   

  1. 1 Faculty of Transportation Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650504, Yunnan, China
    2 Yunnan Modern Logistics Engineering Research Center, Kunming 650504, Yunnan, China
    3 Yunnan Integrated Transport Development and Regional Logistics Management Think Tank, Kunming 650504, Yunnan, China
    4 School of Marxism, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650504, Yunnan, China
  • Received:2025-02-27 Revised:2025-05-06 Online:2026-01-25 Published:2026-01-18
  • Contact: CHEN Fang E-mail:yiluxinshi@sina.com

Abstract:

Logistics enterprises play a crucial role in a regional economy, with their distribution directly affecting its resource allocation and market competitiveness. The study of the evolution characteristics of the spatial pattern of logistics enterprises in prefecture-level cities and their influencing factors can help reveal the formation mechanism of logistics enterprises’ agglomeration. Based on the geographic location data of logistics enterprises in prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2023, we use spatial analysis methods, such as kernel density analysis, standard deviation ellipse, average nearest neighbor, and spatial autocorrelation, to obtain the spatiotemporal pattern and evolution characteristics of logistics enterprises at prefecture-level city scale. The factors affecting the spatial pattern of logistics enterprises and their spatial differentiation are analyzed using multi-scale geographically weighted regression models. The results reveal that (1) The spatial distribution of logistics enterprises in China has always maintained the agglomeration characteristics, and its spatial pattern has experienced the “one-core-driven, multi-point agglomeration” to “multiple cores” and then gradually to the “dual-core” evolutionary process, with corridor diffusion and neighborhood diffusion effects. (2) Logistics enterprise development has a significant positive spillover effect, as a faster development of a city can drive the development of neighboring cities. Underdeveloped cities around a developed city experiencing a “siphon effect” in the “siphon tide” of low-lying areas would experience a significant negative spillover effect. (3) The number of employments in the tertiary industry and the total amount of imports and exports are the main influencing factors of the spatial pattern of logistics enterprises. Moreover, the total amount of imports and exports and the number of foreign-funded enterprises are global influencing factors, while the number of employments in the tertiary industry and GDP per capita are local influencing factors.

Key words: logistics enterprises, spatial evolution, influencing factors, multi-scale geographically weighted regression, prefecture-level city, industrial agglomeration