On the direction and intensity of urban economic contacts in Henan Province

Along with the socio-economic development,the various contacts between cities and regions are becoming more and more close and complicated.Although the research on regional characteristic and difference was dominant in geography thoroughly,traditional positive research on economic location and contacts was weak in quantitative methods,one of the main reasons was the shortage of statistic data.By use of the gravity model,we calculated the economic contacts intensity between cities in Henan province and intensity between this province and the other core metropolises all over the country,and with reference to the data of highway and railway passenger traffic,we found the strongly linear correlation between economic contacts intensity and passenger traffic.So we can use the percentage of economic contacts intensity of each city to total region to indicate the economic contacts direction and economic location quantitatively.The directions and intensities of urban economic contacts in Henan province show that the formation of Zhongyuan urban agglomeration including Zhengzhou,Kaifeng,Luoyang,Xinxiang,Jiaozuo,Xuchang,Pingdingshan,Luohe and Jiyuan has close internal economic linkages and passenger traffic contacts,and they also show that the contacts and cooperation between Zhongyuan and Jingjinji(Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei),Changjiang delta,Wuhan and Guanzhong urban agglomerations are beneficial to the economic development of Henan Province.