Urbanization in Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province in China Since ca. 1930

Abstract

This chapter reports on the compilation and preliminary analyses of the land use datasets of the fourteen cities in Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province conducted as part of the series of study, and on the comparison of urbanization and its background. 1:50,000 topographic maps of China produced by Japan ca. 1930, Atlas of Cities of China which shows land use at ca. 1990 and Landsat ETM+ satellite images of ca. 2000 have been used as basic information sources. The study has shown that the urban expansion in the 1990s was about fourfold in 10 years, i.e., at the speed twice as fast as that during the rapid economic growth in Japan in the 1960s, that expansion was faster in medium to smaller cities than in big cities, and that the agricultural land around cities gave way to urban expansion rapidly. The datasets have been proved to be extremely useful in showing the urban area of each city in ca. 1930, ca. 1990, and ca. 2000 and the trend of change in a graph, and in comparing the fourteen cities to find out their general tendencies and the specific characteristics of each city far more accurately and easily than before. The study also revealed that the statistical areal units in China, namely built-up area, city, and urban district, do not represent “urban area” as accurately as DID, or Densely Inhabited District, used in Japan.