The Growth and Distribution of Population in Beijing Metropolitan Area(1982-2000)

Using the latest data of the fifth census, the authors try to find some laws of the growth and distribution of population in Beijing Metropolitan Area from 1982 to 2000. First of all, the characteristics of population growth in Beijing Metropolitan Area are analyzed and the spatial models of population growth of different periods are drawn. The authors find that suburbanization happened in the 1980s, and quickened its step in the 1990s. The progress of population growth in the 1980s is homogeneous, because types of spatial change of population are less and similarity is more than difference, while that in the 1990s is heterogeneous, because there are more types and difference is more than similarity. Then regression of mathematical models is used to study the distribution of population and the evolution of spatial structure of Beijing Metropolitan Area. In Beijing, the model of Clark can describe population densities of urban areas well, while the model of Smeed can describe those of metropolitan area well. The changes of some parameters indicate that suburbanization in Beijing is still in the primary phase, and that the main way of suburbanization is not the outer one but the inner one. Based on the regression of multi-nuclear model, the authors find that a multi-nuclear spatial structure of Beijing Metropolitan Area did not exist in 1982, that a two-nuclear one appeared in 1990, and that a multi-nuclear one developed in 2000, which was not ripe compared with that in the western cities.