基于航空网络的中国城市体系等级结构与分布格局

航空运输已成为客货流动的重要交通工具和影响城镇体系的重要因素,城市在全球或国家航空网络中的地位直接反映了城市在全球或国家城市体系中所处的等级。由结点(航空港)和连接线(航线)所组成的航空网络代表了城市的空间可达性,直观地反映出国家城市体系的等级结构与分布格局。 本文收集了目前中国14家主要航空公司的航线数据,经相关分析证明航空网络中城市的航线数量与城市体系的规模等级基本上呈正相关趋势;在此基础上,通过基于航线图的航空网络分析,运用图表判别和聚类分析的方法,将中国128个通航城市划分为全国性中心城市、区域性中心城市、次区域中心城市和一般地方性中心城市四个等级,从航空网络的独特视角揭示了开放条件下中国城市体系等级结构与分布格局。

Hierarchical structure and distribution pattern of Chinese urban system based on aviation network

The air transportation has become an important conveyance to carry passengers and cargos, and an important factor to influence the regional urban system. The status of a city in the global or national aviation network directly reflects the hierarchy of the city in the global or national urban system. The aviation network which is comprised of nodes (airports) and lines (airlines) represents the spatial accessibility of the cities, and intuitionisticly reflects the hierarchical structure and distribution pattern of the national urban system. This article collects the airline data which include 128 cities open to air traffic and 2083 airlines from China's 14 major airline companies. The correlation analysis proves that in the aviation network the number of urban airlines was positively correlative to the size of the urban population. On this basis, through the aviation network analysis based on the airline network map of Chinese cities, the article uses the methods of charts discriminance and the clustering analysis to classify all the 128 cities into four hierarchies. They are national central cities which include three cities, regional central cities which include seven cities, sub-regional central cities which include 31 cities and general local central cities which include 87 cities. Then,from a unique perspective of aviation network the article reveals the characteristics of the hierarchical structure and distribution pattern of Chinese urban system under the open conditions, including:1) the urban hierarchical system takes on a typical pyramidal structure, which means the higher the hierarchy of the cities in the system, the smaller the number of cities; 2) the administrative, economic and tourism factors affect the aviation network markedly, consequently affect the urban hierarchical system strongly; 3) the distribution of Chinese cities has obvious differences between east and west, which means the higher-hierarchical cities are mainly distribute in the east, and the aviation relation of the west cities is mostly eastward; 4)the three national central cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and the seven regional central cities including Shenzhen, Urumqi, Shenyang, Chengdu, Xi'an, Chongqing and Kunming constitute the foundamental framework of Chinese urban aviation network, and they are the core of the Chinese urban system. The lower hierarchical cities join in the national aviation network through connecting with the higher hierarchical cities, and in this way they become part of the Chinese urban system.