Geo-visualizing China's Changing Urban Hierarchy 1985 to 2005

摘要

In a prior study, a rank mobility index (RMI) was applied to China's 137 urban agglomerations and mapped using a graduated symbol map to show dramatic changes in China's urban hierarchy from 1985 to 2005. This paper improves the visualization of those rank changes by applying advanced spatial analysis techniques. We use a Moran's scatter plot and a Getis-Ord G_i to examine the regional difference and change for these urban agglomerations ranks. We then use a weighted Voronoi diagram (WVD) approach to produce polygons whose size reflects the magnitude of the RMI. The paper concludes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the various geo-visualization approaches.