Comparative research on regional differences in urbanization and spatial evolution of urban systems between China and India

摘要

As two rising great powers,China and India have undergone similar development processes,but they also exhibit significant differences in development paths and patterns.The significant differences in political systems,economic systems,and developmental environment between the two countries have attracted great attention from scholars.This research focuses on the regional differences and spatial evolution processes in urbanization and urban systems between the two countries from a geographical perspective.Based on the demographic censuses of both countries and the urban population data from the United Nations,this paper systematically compared and analyzed the spatial characteristics of urbanization and urban systems in China and India using various methods including spatial analysis,parameter estimation,and nonparametric estimation.The results indicate that:(1) Since the 1990s,the regional differences in urbanization in China have transformed from south-north differences to coastal-inland differences,whereas the north-south differences in India have been stable.(2) In recent years,the correlation between population density and urbanization rate kept increasing in China,while such correlation has been decreasing in India.(3) The economic reform posed significantly different effects on the spatial evolution of the urban systems in the two countries.The economic reform changed the major driving force for urban development in China from geographical and historical factors to the spatial structure of the economic system.However,in India,the driving forces for urban development have always been geographical and historical factors,and the economic reform even decreased the effect of the spatial structure of the economic system on urban development.