Effect of“traditional chinese village”policy under the background of rapid urbanization in china: Taking jiangxi province as an example

Abstract

Rapid urbanization is the main reason for the disappearance of villages with rich cultural and historical heritage. In order to reverse this trend and achieve the purpose of protecting and using ancient village resources, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and the Ministry of Finance jointly announced the list of "Traditional Chinese Villages". The goal of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of this administrative method by using the spatial analysis method of geography. Jiangxi Province was chosen as the research area for two reasons: the number of Traditional Chinese Villages in the province exceeds the average of all provinces in China; and the related data are available to our research team. Two hypotheses of this study are tested that the disappearance of traditional villages is most obvious around cities; and that identifying "Traditional Chinese Villages" has prevented to some extent the disappearance of old architecture and the historical heritage of ancient villages. This study used nightlight remote sensing, gross domestic product, and population data in grid format and road network data to comprehensively determine and map the zones of urban influence in Jiangxi Province. It then compared the map of urban influence zones with the density of the Traditional Chinese Villages in the province. The results support the two hypotheses. Finally, this article showed that although the naming of Traditional Chinese Villages cannot restore the disappeared ancient villages, it has thwarted the disappearing trend to a certain extent. We recommend that when identifying and naming Traditional Chinese Villages in the future, relevant government departments should pay more attention to ancient villages around cities.