Evaluating Intensive Use of Urban Land in Hebei Province

China is one of the countries short of land resources.Expanding pieces of land are used in non-agricultural sectors in the preliminary stages of the urbanization process.On the other hand,the remaining lands in urban area are used extensively and inefficiently.It is urgent to exploit latent potentiality and achieve higher efficiency of land use.Taking Hebei province as an example,the paper evaluates for the first time the intensive land use in cities of different sizes and scales in the whole province.In a macro manner,the urban land use in the province was classified into such three types as intensive use,proper use,lower use and extensive use.It also explores the rules of the land use potentiality grade in different cities of Hebei province,concluding with the fact that the natural conditions,location convenience and the economic development levels are important factors that affect the intensive land use potentiality of Hebei province.Compared with the potential evaluation system in the past which focused on the uniformity and singularity of city land use,it benefits the macro-regulation of the construction development and utilization structure of urban land use and provides a premise for urban planning,reconstruction and renewing of the deserted urban areas,optimizing the land use patterns,improving the land use efficiency,and achieving the sustainable development of the urban land use.It also makes a thorough study of the evaluation methods of the intensive use of urban land.The classification of land use potential is practically valuable and significant for the macro regulation of the land use.