Spatio-Temporal Pattern of World Heritage and Its Accessibility Assessment in China

Abstract

World Heritage is of high historical, artistic, and scientific value and represents wealth created by human beings or nature that cannot be replaced. In this paper, the tempo–spatial characteristics of World Heritage and its traffic accessibility were assessed in China using statistical and spatial analysis methods. The results showed that development of Chinese World Heritage experienced exploratory, evolution, accelerated development, and stable development phases. To date, there are 55 World Heritage Projects in China, including 37 Cultural Heritage, 14 Natural Heritage, and 4 mixed double heritage projects. Based on the spatial analysis, global spatial correlation of these heritage sites was not significant while the local spatial correlation was significant. The majority of the heritage sites were distributed in the east–central regions of China, and the hotspots were also concentrated in these regions. In addition, an assessment of inter-regional accessibility indicated that 63.18% of heritage sites could be reached within one hour from a city center and the average time taken to reach a heritage site was at 1.03 h in the local city. Time cost was low and accessibility was good. Additionally, an analysis of the overall accessibility showed that the average time cost of the World Heritage Sites was 25.51 h. Overall accessibility in the central plain region of China was very high, with a time cost of <15 h. The overall accessibility in the western mountains and northeastern regions was very limited. In general, the development of China’s World Heritage still has great potential and strong traffic accessibility, which can effectively promote the development of heritage tourism. Meanwhile, heritage tourism can also effectively promote the development of local economies under the principle of protection priority.