中国城市规模划分新标准的适用性研究

2014年11月,国务院发布《关于调整城市规模划分标准的通知》,将城市规模等级划分为“五类七档”,受到广泛关注。但因对新标准的理解存在歧义而出现各种划分结果,引起误解与混乱。在对比新旧标准的基础上,以第六次人口普查数据为基础,分析2010年中国城市规模等级结构,评价新标准的科学性和局限性。结果显示,新标准在空间口径、人口口径、分级标准等方面进行了实质性的改进;按照新标准划分的2010年中国城市规模等级结构,相对于旧标准及其他标准而言,特大城市和大城市数量大幅缩减,而中小城市数量相应增多,呈现出显著的金字塔结构特征,更加符合中心地理论模型和位序—规模法则,更有利于科学地实施城市与人口的分类管理。但同时,新标准也存在“城区人口”数据难以获取、受行政区划调整影响较大等局限性,亟待加强实体城区识别研究和推进数据共享。

Applicability of the new standard of city-size classification in China

The new standard of city-size classification in China that divides all cities into five categories and seven subcategories, which was published in 2014, has gained popular attention. However,there have been various results of city-size classification due to different interpretations of the new standard. This article compares the new standard with the old standard and analyzes the city-size hierarchy of China in 2010 to evaluate the applicability and limitations of the new standard. The results show that the new standard has improved significantly over the old standard by changing the definition of population statistics, definition of urban space statistics, and the classification standard. Comparing the classification results based on the new and the old standards as well as other methods, the number of megacities and big cities reduced significantly while the number of small cities increased. The new result shows a clear pyramid structure of city sizes, which conforms to the central place theory and the rank-size rule. Thus, the new standard provides better guidelines to city management. According to the 6th census data in 2010, China has 12 megacities, 58 big cities, 93 medium-size cities, and 493 small cities. The majority of the higher rank cities are located in national-level urban agglomerations in southeastern China. However, the new standard also has some limitations. Urban resident population statistics that is a key in the new standard are often unavailable in non-census years, and the classification result is affected by adjustments of urban administrative boundaries. Further research on urban area identification and data sharing is urgently needed.