Landscape analysis of geographical names in Hubei Province, China

Abstract

Hubei Province is the hub of communications in central China, which directly determines its strategic position in the country's development. Additionally, Hubei Province is well-known for its diverse landforms, including mountains, hills, mounds and plains. This area is called "The Province of Thousand Lakes" due to the abundance of water resources. Geographical names are exclusive names given to physical or anthropogenic geographic entities at specific spatial locations and are important signs by which humans understand natural and human activities. In this study, geographic information systems (GIS) technology is adopted to establish a geodatabase of geographical names with particular characteristics in Hubei Province and extract certain geomorphologic and environmental factors. We carry out landscape analysis of mountain-related geographical names and water-related geographical names respectively. In the end, we calculate the information entropy of geographical names of each county to describe the diversity and inhomogeneity of place names in Hubei province. Our study demonstrates that geographical names represent responses to the cultural landscape and physical environment. The geographical names are more interesting in specific landscapes, such as mountains and rivers.