Multi-scale spatial structure analysis on the urban system: A case study in Shandong, China

Using the fractal theory, spatial structure analysis on the urban system in Shandong province has been made based on different spatial scale. The conclusion shows that: the spatial structure of urban system in Shandong province is local fractal. On the county-city scale, the aggregation dimension of Ji'nan system is 2.316, and Qingdao system's is 1.727, which shows that the aggregate level of Ji'nan city is worse than the level of Qingdao city. The message dimension of 107 counties or cities is 1.603, between 1 and 2, which shows the spatial distribution of counties or cities is balanced as a whole. On the prefecture-level city scale, the spatial correlation dimension of 17 cities is 1.463, and the ratio of spatial correlation dimension to the spatial correlation dimension based on the traffic net is 0.95, near to 1, which shows the traffic net across 17 cities are convenient and the interaction among cities is close.