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

doi:10.1007/s11442-018-1568-8

Abstract

Abstract:

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.

Key words: urbanization, urban system, spatial pattern, spatial evolution, China, India

Jiaming LI, Yu YANG, Jie FAN, Fengjun JIN, Wenzhong ZHANG, Shenghe LIU, Bojie FU. Comparative research on regional differences in urbanization and spatial evolution of urban systems between China and India[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2018, 28(12): 1860-1876.

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State (Union territory)	Population in 2011 (person)	Urbanization rate (%)	Population density (person/km²)	State (Union territory)	Population in 2011 (person)	Urbanization rate (%)	Population density (person/km²)
Uttar Pradesh	199,581,477	26.17	828	North Arkande	10,116,752	30.23	189
Maharashtra	112,372,972	45.22	365	Himachal Pradesh	6,856,509	10.03	123
Bihar	103,804,637	11.30	1102	Tripura	3,671,032	48.40	350
West Bengal	91,347,736	31.87	1029	Meghalaya	2,964,007	20.07	132
Andhra Pradesh	84,665,533	33.36	308	Manipur	2,721,756	29.21	122
Central states	72,597,565	27.63	236	Nagaland	1,980,602	28.86	119
Tamil Nadu	72,138,958	23.21	555	Goa	1,457,723	62.17	394
Rajasthan	68,621,012	24.87	201	Chhattigarh	25,540,196	23.24	189
Karnataka	61,130,704	38.67	319	Mizoram	1,091,014	52.11	52
Gujarat	60,383,628	42.60	308	Sikkim	607,688	25.15	86
Odisha	41,947,358	16.69	269	Delhi	16,753,235	97.50	9,340
Kerala	33,387,677	47.70	859	Puducherry	1,244,464	68.33	2,598
Jharkhand	32,966,238	24.05	414	Chandigarh	1,054,686	97.25	9,252
Assam	31,169,272	14.10	397	Andaman Islands	379,944	37.70	46
Punjab	27,704,236	37.48	550	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	342,853	46.72	698
Haryana	25,353,081	34.88	573	Daman	242,911	75.17	2,169
Jammu and Kashmir	12,548,926	27.38	56	Laccadive Islands	64,429	78.07	2,013

Year	China		India
Year	Pearson correlation	Spearman correlation	Pearson correlation	Spearman correlation
1990/1991	0.143	0.047	0.846**	0.483**
2000/2001	0.706**	0.393*	0.820**	0.441**
2010/2011	0.719**	0.546**	0.769**	0.453**

	China		India
	a	b	a	b
Value	10.7622	-0.8251	10.5622	-0.9380
Goodness of fit	0.9936		0.99

Year	China		India
Year	Pearson correlation	Spearman correlation	Pearson correlation	Spearman correlation
Urban scale in 1950 and its growth (1950-1980/1990)	0.730**	0.860**	0.857**	0.646**
Urban scale in 1950 and its growth (1980/1990-2015)	0.768**	0.350**	0.623**	0.496**
Urban scale in 1980/1990 and its growth (1980/1990-2015)	0.796**	0.440**	0.848**	0.737**

Year	China		India
Year	Pearson correlation	Spearman correlation	Pearson correlation	Spearman correlation
Distance to six major cities and urban scale growth (1950-1980/1990)	-0.053 (0.301)	-0.146** (0.004)	0.108 (0.176)	0.155 (0.050)
Distance to six major cities and urban scale growth (1980/1990-2015)	-0.189** (0.000)	-0.243** (0.000)	0.016 (0.837)	0.020 (0.806)