A study on competition of hinterland in Zhejiang Province between Shanghai Port and Ningbo Port

Ningbo Port develops quickly in recent years and with the combination of Ningbo Port and Zhoushan Port, it becomes another important port in the Shanghai International Shipping center. Competition between the two biggest ports in this area can't be avoided. The goal of this paper is investigating the competence of port from two angles, which are spatial structure of the ports cluster and neighboring ports' attraction to cargoes at conjunct hinterlands. The paper firstly uses the HHI index model and shift-share method to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze the data of container throughputs of ports in the shipping center, in order that investigates the spatial structure of ports cluster. Basing on above researches, the paper employs the location quotient to study Shanghai port and Ningbo port's hinterland distributions at Zhejiang province. The conclusion of this study:(I)the ports cluster of the Shanghai International Shipping Center is highly centralized, and undergoes a porcess of first centralization then decentralization since the mid of 90s, last century. (2)Hinterlands of Shanghai port includes: Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou and Quzhou districts; Hinterlands of Ningbo port includes: Ningbo, Taizhou and Zhoushan districts.