The Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Urbanization of China's Agricultural Area and Its Influential Factors: the Case of Henan Province

The agricultural area of China has a large population with relatively little(arable) land, weak industry development, and its urbanization is lack of motivation, mostly below the national average. It is necessary to deeply probe the pattern and developmental factors of urbanization in agricultural area, so as to promote the process of urbanization. Taking Henan Province as an example, the author uses the methods of coefficient of variation, spatial autocorrelation and stepwise regression analysis to analyze the spatio-temporal pattern of urbanization in Henan Province and its influential factors during 2000-2010. The results show that: in recent decade, the overall level of urbanization in the counties of Henan Province has increased significantly,and the evolution of urbanization rate shows ahigh- slowlow-fast(areas with high urbanization level grow slow, areas with low urbanization level grow fast) trend, and the gap of urbanization level among the counties is narrowing. The overall spatial agglomeration characteristics of Henan's urbanization were not significant, but the spatial agglomeration of individual location, especially the characteristics of spatial agglomeration of low level of urbanization was obvious, lack of a high level of urbanization clusters. Population density, per capita GDP, non- agricultural industry development and the income of urban residents have become the important factors affecting Henan's urbanization.