Subsequent to founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, remarkable development achievements have been made and the country has entered into a new era of socialism with specific national characteristics. In order to realize this Chinese Dream, the government put forward “The Two Centenary Goals” which aim to complete building a moderately prosperous society by the time the Communist Party of China celebrates its centenary in 2021. The goal is therefore to also turn China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the time the People’s Republic of China celebrates its centenary in 2049. In light of developmental changes, Chinese national strategy made a number of key changes in terms of realistic needs, developmental stage and goal as well as ideas and spatial governance (Table 1). In the context of a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, construction of ‘Beautiful China’ enables a new goal and developmental vision for national second centenary development. This scheme also presents the most important direction for future land spatial planning.

Subsequent to the proposal of the ‘Beautiful China’ concept, all levels of national government have successively strengthened the work of ecological environmental protection and undertaken environmental pollution prevention and control, ecological and urban restoration, and human settlement improvements. These innovations have created a construction mode of ‘Beautiful China’ encompassing local characteristics such as ‘beautiful Zhejiang’ (Fu et al., 2018), ‘beautiful Fujian’ (Fu et al., 2019), ‘beautiful Jiangxi’ (Hu et al., 2018) and ‘beautiful Yunnan’ (Zhang, 2018). Nevertheless, as part of the process of exploring ‘Beautiful China’ construction, a number of misunderstandings have developed around the idea that the construction of Beautiful China only needs to do well in ecological construction. This is incorrect: the construction of Beautiful China is supposed to be a collective concept which aims to create a resource-saving and environment-friendly society as well as a beautiful home comprising ‘intensive and efficient production space, livable living space and beautiful ecological space’. The idea is to also comprehensively promote the overall development of China’s five-pronged strategy of coordinated process in economy, politics, culture, society and ecology. Economic construction is fundamental, political development is guaranteed, cultural construction is spiritual, social construction is required and the ecological civilization construction is the foundation (Wang et al., 2012). This means that China can only achieve the overall construction goal of Beautiful China by achieving green economic growth, political systematic improvements, cultural inheritance and rejuvenation, social harmony and happiness, as well as the development of ecological civilization. These are the mechanisms by which the Chinese nation can realize great rejuvenation and sustainable development (Figure 1).

The rapid development of industrialization and urbanization within China has also led to a number of ‘urban diseases’ such as ecological damage (Wang et al., 2018), heavy smog (Fang et al., 2016), and comprehensive environmental pollution (Wang et al., 2019). These factors have hindered the sustainable development of cities even though urban expansion has been effectively promoted while the economic level and living conditions of urban residents have been enhanced (Chen et al., 2015). The idea that local governments regard gross domestic product as the only valuable pursuit means that urban spatial planning has only focused on economic development rather than city quality. This also means that the phenomenon of ‘thousands of cities on one look’ (Fan et al., 2016) is prevalent in eastern, central, and western regions of China where local culture remains insufficient and urban residents have a depleted sense of belonging and well-being. The construction of ‘Beautiful China’ is therefore targeted to break through the existing ‘aesthetic mediocrity’ dilemma faced by urban construction and to improve the urban landscape by highlighting regional characteristic cultures. This means that during the process of building ‘Beautiful China,’ eastern, central, and western regions must also adapt their implementation measures to local conditions, place full emphasis on their regional advantages, and focus on creating local characteristics. Differentiation in objectives and establishment priorities at national, provincial, municipal, county, and township levels land spatial planning should be seen. National land spatial planning focuses on top-level design and therefore emphasizes development strategy, orientation and general thought, as well as organizational and management tasks such as planning preparation procedures, approval, and assessment. In light of this, emphasis at city, county, and township levels is placed on specific implementation measures as well as on promoting the rational and orderly utilization of every piece of land and space. Provincial units are therefore responsible for intermediate connections, which means they must pay attention not only to strategic direction, but also develop practical guidelines that are significant for the next level of land spatial planning. This enables these regions to perform well in the top-level design and layered implementation of the ‘Beautiful China’ concept (Figure 2). As part of the process of evaluating the effects of ‘Beautiful China’ construction, it is therefore necessary to develop a multi-dimensional, multi-level, multi-objective, and multi-standard evaluation index system that encapsulates different spatial scales and regional differences.

As part of the process of building ‘Beautiful China’ across different spatial scales, authorities at the state level should strengthen top-level design and organizational leadership and issue instructive strategic planning and phased policy documents to their subordinates. Similarly, at the provincial level, it is necessary to formulate an implementation outline for the construction of ‘Beautiful China’ in order to take the lead in the development of this concept. At the city level, specific action plans should be formulated that encompass the overall layout of multi-element beautiful construction, while at the county level, it is necessary to actively implement the construction plan and create model areas within the ‘Beautiful China’ concept. Finally, it is necessary to comprehensively promote ‘Beautiful China’ construction at the township level in order to ensure that these areas become the birthplace for this dream. Significant differences in the natural background of different regions must also be kept in mind during the process of building ‘Beautiful China’, and the ‘Beautiful China’ construction is supposed to have different focuses.

The purpose of land spatial planning is to coordinate the sustainable development of regional space as well as to prevent and control imbalances and the disordered development spatial structures (Yu et al., 2016). Thus, subsequent to 1978 national reform and opening-up, the Chinese government has paid more attention to land spatial planning. National ministries and commissions, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development, the Ministry of Ecological Environment, and the State Oceanic Administration, have presided over the preparation of different forms and levels of planning. These have comprised major functional area, land use, land spatial structure, urban and rural, ecological environmental protection, and marine functional area planning strategies and have all strongly supported the sustained and rapid development of the economy and society even though a series of urgent problems have demanded prompt solutions. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China therefore proposed to coordinate land spatial planning on the basis of various functional areas and to transition from multi-management to ‘one blueprint.’ This Plenary Session also promoted ‘multi-compliance and integration’ in order to more effectively realize innovative development of multi-disciplinary land spatial planning (Figure 3). In the past, land spatial planning faced a range of dilemmas including multi-management, multi-research, and multi-planning; these days, however, contradictions and constraints among departments are expected to have fundamentally improved. Thus, via top-level design of institutional adjustments, the Ministry of Natural Resources has realized the unified deployment and management of land and space. In order to achieve the general goal of realizing the ‘Beautiful China’ concept in the modern era, land spatial planning also necessitates the multi-disciplinary integration of geography, planning, resources, and environmental science. Innovation in such areas such as systematic mechanisms, theoretical systems, organization and management, applied technology, mode route, and ideology will also be necessary.

The ‘Beautiful China’ concept encapsulates the new goals and development vision of Chinese modernization in the new era. This concept therefore guides important land spatial planning decisions nationally in order to meet people’s desires for a better life. Thus, land spatial planning is one important way in which ‘Beautiful China’ goals will be met, it provides a significant mechanism and space guarantee for ‘Beautiful China’ construction. One of the most important ways to measure Chinese capacity and governance level is to scientifically formulate land spatial planning and promote ‘Beautiful China’ construction (Fan et al., 2017). In the past when many plans were put into action that encompassed parallel multi-management processes, complicated approval procedures and planning features contradicted each other and led to significantly increased planning and construction costs. This confusion influenced the modernization of Chinese systems and overall capacity for governance (Liu et al., 2016), especially spatial governance modernization. Thus, major reform measures of land spatial planning conform to the original intention of the ‘unified implementation of land and space use control’ (Lin et al., 2018). Geographical science has contributed the long-term scientific foundation to ‘Beautiful China’ construction and land spatial planning. Major national strategies also provide unprecedented opportunities for the development of geographical science disciplines (Figure 4).

The concept of land space is a massive and dynamic human-land relationship system that encompasses interactions between human factors such as population, society, economy, innovation, globalization, and infrastructure with natural factors such as the ecological environment, water and land resources, energy, the environment, and climate (Zhang and Fang, 2016). Based on historical process evolution data and on the premise of accurately understanding the dynamic complex giant system of land space and its internal multiple elements positive and negative feedback mechanism and dynamic evolution law, land spatial planning is to build multi-element, linear, non-linear, dynamic and discrete scenario simulation and trend prediction models, so as to scientifically predict and reasonably plan the future land space development and utilization (Zhang and Chen, 2016). Land spatial planning developmental goal prediction has therefore transitioned over time from the extrapolation of historical processes to future predictions by combining the key goals of the ‘Beautiful China’ concept with historical data analysis. This has enabled the coordinated development and utilization of land and space and has also promoted the orderly development of economy and society (Meng et al., 2015). Thus, via the key goals of ‘Beautiful China’ construction and constraints on land spatial planning such as ‘adhering to people-oriented development to achieve high-quality development and high-quality life and building a beautiful home’, the scientific layout of ‘production-living-ecological’ spaces, and ‘comprehensively improve the modernization level of land space governance system and governance capacity, and moderately form an intensive and efficient production space, a livable and appropriate living space, a beautiful and safe ecological space and harmonious, competitive and sustainable land space pattern by 2035’, China can continue to strengthen natural environmental protection, which will enable the development of a new pattern of land spatial development and protection in the new era that is based on ‘goal orientation and process constraint.’

The material basis that underlies land spatial planning is the effective coordination of a harmonious, pluralistic, and orderly human-land relationship. This means that entire components of the human-land relationship must be considered for overall planning and management. The Academician Wu Chuanjun (1979) proposed a regional system theory for the human-land relationship and pointed out that this system actually comprises a dynamic and complex giant that consists of the interactions between the geographical environment and human activities (Wu, 2008). Because of excessive human activities, the elements of society and the natural ecological environment are now characterized by unbalanced and uncoordinated developmental trends which have led to ecological environmental damage and urban problems. The regional system theory of human-land relationships therefore aims to elaborate the interaction modes of all elements and promote coordinated development and comprehensive optimization.

Point-axis system theory was first proposed by Mr. Lu Dadao, a famous Chinese human geographer, at the ‘National Symposium on Economic Geography and Land Planning’ that was held in 1984 in Urumqi. Subsequently, based on long-term research and in-depth practical experience of Chinese macro-regional development, Academician Lu further elaborated on ‘the formation process of the point-axis spatial structure,’ ‘the structure and type of the development axis,’ ‘the gradual diffusion of the point-axis,’ and ‘the point-axis-aggregation area.’ He published a series of research articles and developed a complete theoretical understanding of the point-axis system (Lu, 1987, 1988). Point-axis system theory has been widely utilized subsequently across many disciplines and research fields (Fan et al., 2015; Fang et al., 2015a; Li et al., 2001; Zhang et al., 2010) and is now recognized as comprising the two most effective applied achievements in Chinese human geography (Lu et al., 2002). This theoretical structure has also been applied in the Outline of National Land Master Planning and is the scientific basis for the ‘T’ structure implemented in Chinese land development.

The theory of a major functional area is one of the most important guiding ideologies underpinning Chinese land spatial planning. Thus, on the basis of the comprehensive carrying capacity of resources and the environment, the density of land spatial development, and the potential for future planning and utilization in different regions, geographers recognize four types of potential land development, i.e., optimized development, key development, restricted development, and forbidden development areas (Fan, 2007). The division of these major functional areas adheres to the ‘people-oriented’ principle, with emphasis on the harmonious coexistence and coordinated development of human and natural complex systems. This approach provides the key theoretical basis for giving full scope to the regulatory role of government departments as well as the effect of the market economy and new patterns of regional coordinated development. This approach has also effectively enabled social organizations to correctly recognize and reasonably plan for land spatial construction (Fan, 2013).

The concept of sustainable development was first defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development as ‘meeting the needs of the present without affecting the needs of future generations’ (Brundtland et al., 1987). In recent years, the ‘future Earth’ research plan (Fan and Jiang, 2015) as well as 2030 Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have also been proposed (UN, 2015). Although the Chinese economy has achieved long-term and high-speed growth since 1978, significant structural problems are also seen including overcapacity (Lu, 2015). This growth has also led to ecological damage (Liang et al., 2019a), environmental pollution (Liang et al., 2019b), and a range of other problems. To enhance sustainable development, urban agglomerations are now expected to adhere to the sustainable rising law (Fang et al., 2019). Research on resources and environmental carrying capacities have further deepened our understanding of sustainable development, an area of high value to the Chinese government (Chen et al., 2017). It is hoped that by systematically and quantitatively evaluating the capacities of resources, the environment, ecology, and other features to carry human production we can better understand the interactions between natural and human elements (Zheng et al., 2016). Affording attention to the interactive coupling effect of resources, the environment, and economic development can support sustainable development (Hao et al., 2019; Niu et al., 2019); this research area therefore provides an important basis for land spatial planning (Zhou et al., 2019).

A significant amount of attention was paid in the past to the urbanization process in order to accelerate it at the expense of quality (Lu et al., 2007). In order to mitigate this trend, it was proposed in 2007 that human development in China should be at the core of urbanization (Chen et al., 2007). The Chinese government then proposed in 2011 that urbanization should also include healthy human development, the urban-rural relationship, and resources and the environment (Chen et al., 2011). It is therefore no longer appropriate to regard urbanization acceleration as a core development policy (Chen, 2011b). The 2014 ‘New Urbanization Plan’ for China highlighted the fact that urbanization should be human-oriented (Lu et al., 2015); healthy urbanization is therefore now an important academic idea that supports our transformation to a new growth model. At the national level, a ‘healthy development plan of urbanization’ has also been implemented, now finally defined as the ‘new-type urbanization plan.’ Indeed, to avoid the use of too many nouns, healthy urbanization has been renamed, but remains essentially the same. Connotations of new-type urbanization theory include human nature, coordination, inclusiveness, and sustainability (Chen et al., 2019). This concept is therefore significantly different from earlier models of urbanization which pursued economic and single-factor growth as well as partial benefits and were therefore unsustainable. It is also clear that new-type urbanization should make rational use of land resources (Yao et al., 2012), recognize regional differences (Zhou, 1983), attach importance to climate change, resources, and the environment (Gu et al., 2009), and even establish a global perspective (Xue et al., 2010). This new-type urbanization across China is still being initiated; long-term development and quality improvement processes will be required as well as sustained and in-depth academic research support. Urban agglomerations have become the main source of Chinese socioeconomic development; this means that the proposed ‘5 + 9 + 6 spatial patterns for urban agglomerations’ (referring to the construction of five national-level, nine regional-level, six local-level urban agglomerations) (Fang, 2015) will be of great significance for future land planning (Fang et al., 2015b).

A regional system for urban and rural areas was proposed across China in 2008; this system elaborated on the coupling of urban and rural systems and emphasized the transformation of rural areas as well as the integration of urban and rural development (Zhang et al., 2008). The objective of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization is multi-system in rural areas and includes urban-rural integration, the rural complex, the village and town organism, and residential and industry coordination. The concept of rural revitalization therefore emphasizes optimization and the reconstruction of an urban-rural integration system as well as accelerating the construction of a multi-level target system comprising an urban-rural basic network, a rural development zone, a rural space field, and a rural revitalization pole. The issue of ‘agriculture, rural areas, and farmers’ across China is essentially a problem of sustainable development within the context of the regional rural system. Rural development therefore faces the inter-related issues of high-speed non-agricultural production factors, the rapid aging and weakening of rural residents, increasingly empty and wasted rural construction land, the serious pollution of rural soil and aqueous environments, and intense poverty. Rural areas are an important component of spatial land use as well as one key foundation for socioeconomic development (Liu, 2018).

In this new era, the premise and foundation of spatial planning is to clarify the natural background of land and space. This means it is necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding and evaluation system for natural resource endowments, ecological service functions, the geographic environmental carrying capacity, and other multi-element background features of land and space. The carrying capacity of resources and the environment as well as resource endowments and ecological conditions means that we can clarify the limitations and suitability of land development and propose the ‘double evaluation’ method (i.e., the evaluation of resource and environmental carrying capacity as well as the suitability of land and space development) for land spatial planning. The ‘double evaluation’ method can then be used to analyze resources as well as the environment and ecology of the land and spatial system in order to perform a comprehensive evaluation encompassing human activities. This approach enables us to accelerate our basic work including delimiting ecological protection red lines as well as those for the permanent basic protection of farmland and the three control lines that mark the boundaries of urban development.

In addition to natural background, the socio-economy refers to human activities that must be regulated in the context of land spatial planning. Land spatial patterns are therefore a comprehensive reflection of the interaction and coupling of natural resources, the environment, and the socioeconomic system. Subsequent to Chinese reform and opening-up, the development of urbanization and industrialization has continued to increase alongside land and spatial development. At the same time, contradictions between socioeconomic development and resource and environmental protection have become increasingly intense (Chen, 2011a). Our current understanding of land spatial planning focuses on regional socioeconomics, the stage and mode of this development as well as the integration, optimization, and coordinated development of behavioral process. Scientific calculations as well as in-depth analysis of the intensity of land and spatial development must be based on the intensity of land, resources, and environmental carrying capacity in order to comprehensively guide the orderly development and efficient use of land and space across China.

In light of the rapid development of economy and society in China as well as continuous progress in transportation technology, connections between different cities and regions have become ever closer. Thus, as part of the land-space planning process, we must fully consider the impacts of flow space interactions on land space. This will enable us to break the current emphasis on scale and the past level of physical space utilization in order to create conditions for the complete flow of elements. An input-output table is therefore useful because it reveals the mechanisms of industrial connections in different regions and can also be utilized to quantitatively explore the influence of flow spatial organization on the total elements of land and space. Thus, by analyzing the characteristics of openness, liquidity, complexity, and the dynamics of pedestrian, logistics, information, and capital flow spatial organization we can improve spatial flow and the allocation efficiency of regional elements. This will also enable us to construct a coordinated, orderly, rapid, and efficient land spatial contact network (Fan, 2016).

In order to achieve our goal of comprehensively optimizing land space, planning in this area should rely completely on our scientific understanding of natural background, the socio- economy, and land space regional connections. This will then enable us to propose a layout and overall development plan for production, living, and ecological space in urban and rural areas across different spatial scales. Land spatial planning must therefore be combined with the overall goal and phased goals of the ‘Beautiful China’ concept and, as such, will focus on the high-quality development requirements of both land and space. Proposing a short-, medium-, and long-term multi-stage developmental vision of land spatial planning at different scales and levels will mean that this process can be applied to design scientific and reasonable space development paths and create a new pattern comprising ‘production-living- ecological’ spaces, ‘intensive and efficient production space, livable and moderate living space, and beautiful ecological space.’

As part of the process of land spatial planning, it is important to emphasize scientific ideas, innovation, and public participation. These feedbacks will enable us to adhere more closely to the scientific decision-making mode led by the government, guided by experts, and including public participation. It is therefore necessary to encourage the public to participate in land spatial planning and to provide evaluation services regarding effects. Thus, by widely seeking ‘public wisdom’ and coordinating ‘public interest,’ we are able to work together to create a scientific and efficient land spatial planning process. Efforts have to date been focused on establishing national, provincial, municipal, and county-level ‘land spatial planning committees.’ In order to gather the planning functions of each department, China must be responsible for the preparation, declaration acceptance, conflict coordination, supervision, and management of land spatial planning and to conduct ongoing dynamic supervision and evaluation of the content, progress, and effects of planning implementation. We aim to expand the channels for the public to apply for spatial planning in order to ensure that everyone can gradually become an important supervisor, promoter, and assessor of spatial planning.

Big data applications were applied first in the social sciences (Floridi, 2012) and have more recently been gradually integrated into geographic research (Wu et al., 2015; Zhen and Wang, 2015). At present, big data technology provides technical and information support for the comprehensive evaluation of the socio-economy (Zhen et al., 2015b) and has thus been widely cited as part of innovative research on urban spatial intelligent planning (Chai et al., 2014; Ding et al., 2016; Long et al., 2015). The application of big data in the preparation of land spatial planning remains in an exploratory stage, however. It is nevertheless possible to combine big data with multi-element investigations and material analyses based on mining and modeling technology, including land and space development, natural resources, the ecological environment, and economic society. This enables us to integrate big data across diversified geographical spaces to establish both database and atlases. We also have the ability to develop a big data cloud computing platform that can realize multi-scenario simulations through human-computer interactions. These approaches mean that we are finally able to formulate an intelligent decision-making system of land spatial planning that includes visualization, energy analysis, human-computer interactions, and effective early warning characteristics.