| Abstract: | Over the past years, creative cities received great attention in academic circle. However, current literature mainly focuses on the cases in specific regions, lacking of research on the regional heterogeneity in the development of creative cities on the global level. Based on the concept of creative cities, this paper provides an empirical study on regional diversity of UNESCO "Creative City Network" members. Using the quantitative methods such as clustering analysis, social network analysis, it investigates the clustering of the global creative cities among different countries. The findings suggest that: (1) In terms of the types of global creative cities, the core themes in the UNESCO "Creative City Network" are handicraft, folk art and music. In terms of regional distribution, Western Europe, Northeast Asia, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are the core areas. (2) This regional heterogeneity is greatly influenced by historical and cultural contexts, as well as geographical proximity. In general, countries over the world can be classified into four clusters: Music Media Art countries (mainly European and Caribbean countries), Literature Creative countries (mainly Indo-European countries), Handicraft and Folk Art Creative countries (dominated by ancient Silk Road countries), Design Creative Country and Food Creative Country (mainly Asian countries). (3) South Korea, Australia, Italy, the United States, China and other countries take up the central position in the global creative cities network. Although China has a lot of creative cities, its centrality is relatively faire due to that homogenization of creative cities in China is serious. There is a shortage of diversified development strategies in building creative cities in China. © 2023 Editorial Department of World Regional Studies |
