互联网与中国信息网络城市的崛起

从互联网骨干网络拓扑结构入手,对中国互联网进行了初步的地理学分析,着重考察了基于这种新的信息基础设施架构之上的中国城市体系格局。结果表明：一个由信息网络城市组成的城市网络已在中国浮现,北京、上海和广州之间的互联网骨干连接构成了我国长距离电子通信的核心层次。互联网基础设施建设正在重构城市的竞争优势,而地理区位因素仍在其中起着重要的作用。

The Internet and the Rise of Information Network Cities in China

Advanced information and telecommunication technology has brought human being into a new information age, resulting in the emerging of an informational, global, and networked society. In the 1990s, the rapid growth of the Internet not only had strong impacts on the social and economic fields, but also restructured the organizations of global physical and virtual spaces. In recent years, the scholarly research on Internet has rapidly increased in many fields such as urban geography in the western developed countries. However, little research on the cities of developing countries exists in the Internet studies literature, and almost none addresses the topic of China, despite of their obvious implications for urban development in China. This paper seeks to fill this gap and understand the impact of Internet on the urban system in China. Based on the measurement of Internet backbone networks, it analyses the spatial structure of the Internet city network and ranks these cities in China. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and their linkages constitute the core level of long-distance telecommunication network. The investments in infrastructure are rewriting the map of competitive advantage of cities. An urban network of the information network cities is emerging in which the geographical factor plays an important role.