Spatial stratified heterogeneity is the spatial expression of natural and socio-economic process, which is an important approach for human to recognize nature since Aristotle. Geodetector is a new statistical method to detect spatial stratified heterogeneity and reveal the driving factors behind it. This method with no linear hypothesis has elegant form and definite physical meaning. Here is the basic idea behind Geodetector: assuming that the study area is divided into several subareas. The study area is characterized by spatial stratified heterogeneity if the sum of the variance of subareas is less than the regional total variance; and if the spatial distribution of the two variables tends to be consistent, there is statistical correlation between them. Q-statistic in Geodetector has already been applied in many fields of natural and social sciences which can be used to measure spatial stratified heterogeneity, detect explanatory factors and analyze the interactive relationship between variables. In this paper, the authors will illustrate the principle of Geodetector and summarize the characteristics and applications in order to facilitate the using of Geodetector and help readers to recognize, mine and utilize spatial stratified heterogeneity.

Cities and villages are components of a specific organism. Only the sustainable development of two parts can support the prosperous development as a whole. According to the theory of man-earth areal system, urban-rural integrated system and rural regional system are the theoretical bases for entirely recognizing and understanding urban-rural relationship. To handle the increasingly severe problems of "rural disease" in rapid urbanization, accelerating rural revitalization in an all-round way is not only a major strategic plan for promoting the urban-rural integration and rural sustainable development, but also a necessary requirement for solving the issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people in the new era and securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. This study explores the basic theories of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization and analyzes the main problems and causes of rural development in the new era, proposing problem-oriented scientific approaches and frontier research fields of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization in China. Results show that the objects of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization is a regional multi-body system, which mainly includes urban-rural integration, rural complex, village-town organism, and housing-industry symbiosis. Rural revitalization focuses on promoting the reconstruction of urban-rural integration system and constructs a multi-level goal system including urban-rural infrastructure networks, zones of rural development, fields of village-town space and poles of rural revitalization. Currently, the rural development is facing the five problems: high-speed non-agricultural transformation of agriculture production factors, over-fast aging and weakening of rural subjects, increasingly hollowing and abandoning of rural construction land, severe fouling of rural soil and water environment and deep pauperization of rural poverty-stricken areas. The countryside is an important basis for the socioeconomic development in China, and the strategies of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization are complementary. The rural revitalization focuses on establishing the institutional mechanism for integrated urban-rural development and constructs the comprehensive development system of rural regional system, which includes transformation, reconstruction and innovation in accordance with the requirements of thriving businesses, pleasant living environments, social etiquette and civility, effective governance, and prosperity. Geographical research on rural revitalization should focus on the complexity and dynamics of rural regional system and explore new schemes, models and scientific approaches for the construction of villages and towns, which are guided by radical cure of "rural disease", implement the strategy of rural revitalization polarization, construct the evaluation index system and planning system of rural revitalization, thus providing advanced theoretical references for realizing the revitalization of China's rural areas in the new era.

By the reference and creation of the predecessors\' theory, Paul Krugman introduces the achievements of New Trade and New Growth Theory into the traditional location theory, and puts forward a new location theory which is called New Economic Geography. Based on this theory and his achievements in the New Trade Theory, Krugman won the Nobel Prize in 2008. Krugman defined the New Economic Geography as the location theory of production, just as the concept of the classical location theory, which is proposed to explain the mechanism of formation and evolution of the economic spatial structure. The New Economic Geography theory of Krugman, scattered in his several books, is summed up as follows: a main idea, four propositions, four tools and three models. Krugman\'s new Economic Geography is based on the main idea that there exists multiple equilibrium state in the development of economic spatial structure. In order to analyze more clearly the process of formation and evolution of economic spatial structure, Krugman puts forward four propositions: (1) Transportation Costs play a key role in international trade and inter-regional trade; (2) Spatial agglomeration of interrelated economic activity could achieve cost-saving and benefit-increasing; (3) The cost-saving and benefit-increasing from the economic spatial agglomeration could promote the further concentration of economic development; (4) Early-development advantage could lead to the long-term accumulation of economic activity. Furthermore, Krugman introduces D-S Monopolistic Competition Model (built by A. Dixit and J. Stiglitz), "Iceberg"-type Transportation Costs, Self-organization Simulation and Computer Technology into the new Economic Geography, and builds three models, i.e., the Core-Periphery Model, Urban System Model and the International Model. The New Economic Theory of Krugman is a new development of Economic Geography under new situation, which can deal with the difficult problem in economic location study which has not been solved by traditional Economic Geography. But for a long time, the New Economic Theory of Krugman was considered a new academic field which is differentiated from or opposed to the classical Economic Geography in geographical circle. Therefore, this theory has attracted relatively little attention from the researchers in Geography. From the angle of geographic view, the paper reinterprets the theoretical connotation, significance of the New Economic Geography of Krugman and elaborates its relation with traditional location theory, analyses its effects on the development of Economic Geography, and hopes to provide the reference and consultation for innovation of the research paradigm of the Economic Geography in China and drafting of the long-term research program in regional development fields.

The Tibetan Plateau is regarded as a typically sparsely populated area both from Chinese and global perspectives. There exists a large difference in population distribution of the Tibetan Plateau. Based on the town-level census data in 2010, we compiled a spatial population database to calculate the population density of the Tibetan Plateau. We found that the population distribution on this plateau was characterized in four dimensions, namely longitude, latitude, polarization and altitude. In addition, similar to the "Hu Line" for Chinese population distribution, we introduce the "Qilian-Gyirong Line" (short for Qi-Ji Line), a spatial division line of population geography in the Tibetan Plateau. Our main results are summarized as follows. (1) There are significant regional differences in the spatial population distribution in the Tibetan Plateau. The population density in the southeast was higher than that in the northwest. Compared to longitude-oriented, latitude-oriented and altitude-oriented regional differences, the polarization-oriented regional difference of population distribution was more prominent. This finding indicates that fewer people live in areas close to the cold-arid core of the Tibetan Plateau. (2) The spatial population distribution is closely related to the natural and environmental factors, including altitude, soil, water resources, climate and vegetation. The interaction between the natural factors has an impact on enhancing the regional difference of population. (3) The "Qiji Line" reveals the spatial differences of population in the Tibetan Plateau. The areas on either side of the line are approximately similar, whereas the population shares in the southeast and northwest halves are 93% and 7%, respectively. (4) In general, the population differences on both sides of the "Qiji Line" were stable over time. During 1982-2010 the population share in the southeast half decreased counterbalanced by an increased share in the northeast half. In the future, the majority of the people are expected to live on the southeast side. This is likely to imply two major policy initiatives. More attention is required on the urbanization development and transportation network construction in the southeast half and the increasing eco-environmental pressures from the growing population in the northwest half.

China is the most populous country of the world.Besides her great numberof population she has also the most densely inhabited regions which are notcomparable with any other country of the world.

Biological diversity can be studies at four levels of organization:genetic,species,ecosystem and landscape. Although habitat heterogeneity has received increased attention, especially in the agricultural landscape mosaic dominated by monoculture practices,the ecological importance of increasing landscape diversity has not been addressed in a comprehensive approach.Landscape diversity types and their ecological significance are discussed in this paper.Landscape diversity is the complexity and diversity of landscape elements in composition,structure and function, which refers not only to number of different patch types, patch size,and patch shape within a landscape mosaic, but also to the spatial arrangement of different patch types and the connectivity and connectedness of these patches. Therefore,landscape diversity is composed of patch diversity,landscape type diversity and pattern diversity.Patch diversity identifies patch number, patch size, patch shape, perimeter-area ratio,landscape fragmentation and patch edge.Landscape type diversity identifies distribution richness and proportions of patch types.Pattern diversity is a measure of the relative arrangement of patch type within landscape mosaic,which identifies spatial pattern of landscape type,connectivity, spatial linkage and neighborhood effects between the patches.Pattern diversity considers not only physical distance between the patches but also the landscape connectivity.Landscape diversity,including patch diversity,landscape type diversity and pattern diversity,may influence a variety such as ecological phenomena such as species distribution,movement and diversity,water runoff and erosion,nutrient cycling and energy flow rates,biomass and prductivity.Landscape diversity can be related to land use and landscape planning,wildlife habitat protection and biodiversity conservation.In optimizing biodiversity at the landscape level, resource managers and policy makers must not only conserve an array of patches, but also address how these patches can be best interconnected.

China's reforms as well as entering the WTO need human geographers to move forward to cope with challenges from globalization and develop new theories and approaches of human geography that accord with national condition of China as well as the international research mainstream. This paper discusses the subject nature of human geography from the analysis of its development and points out that human geography is a branch subject of geography that has always rooted in the physical geography and various thoughts from other sciences have brought new growth points to human geography. The basic theories of contemporary human geography refer to space, globalization, urbanization, population, migration, culture, landscape, development, geopolitics etc. Its main contents include the relation between globalization and regional differences, the relation between human and environment, the political and economic evolution of different-scale space and the social-cultural features of factors relating to nationality, race, gender, age, class and their effects on spatial development. This paper summarizes the main research contents of several human geography's branch subjects, including economic geography, urban geography, tourist geography, political geography, population geography, social geography, cultural geography, behavioral geography, regional geography and applied geography. Besides, some research approaches such as positivistic approach, empirical approach, behaviorist approach, pragmatist approach, postmodernist approach, poststructuralist approach, feminist approach etc, are also analyzed. Thus, from the aspects of research contents and approaches, new trends of progress in contemporary human geography are discussed.

With the population increase and food consumption upgrade in China, the issue of food self-sufficiency attracts much attention from both Chinese government and international society. Under the circumstances of inadequate cropland resources supply and plenty of cropland occupied by urban construction, improving the utilization efficiency of arable land resources and increasing the cropland productivity have become the fundamental strategies of agricultural development in China. Since 1988, cropland improvement projects (medium-yield and low-yield field improvement and high-standard cropland construction) have been launched and implemented on a large scale, therefore a spatially explicit map for the distribution of high-, medium- and low-yield cropland was essential for cropland improvement planning. In this study, a new method for recognizing high-, medium- and low-yield field is developed based on cropland productivity, which is calculated by using a light use efficiency model and MODIS data with a 500-m resolution. This method can not only reflect the regional heterogeneity of cropland condition, but also express the spatial differences on a grid scale. At the same time, it effectively overcomes the shortage of statistical data based method in a county unit. The results show that the proportion of high-yield, medium-yield and low-yield cropland in China is 20.66%, 39.56% and 39.78%, respectively. About 3/4 of low-yield cropland is located in the hilly and mountainous regions, while 53% of the high-yield cropland is located in plain area. The five provinces with the largest area of high-yield cropland are Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei and Anhui, which are all located in the Huang-Huai-Hai region. The sum of the high-yield cropland area in these five provinces accounts for 41.75% of the national total high-yield cropland area. In Heilongjiang province, Sichuan province and Inner Mongolia autonomous region, where the cropland area ranks the top three of China, the proportion of high-yield cropland area in each province only accounts for not more than 15%.

Following the emergence of large numbers of spatiotemporal datasets, the literatures related to spatiotemporal data analysis increase rapidly in recent years. This paper reviews the literatures and practices in spatiotemporal data analysis, and classifies the methods available for spatiotemporal data analysis into seven categories: including geovisualization of spatiotemporal data, time series analysis of spatial statistical indicators, coupling spatial and temporal change indicators, detection of spatiotemporal pattern and abnormality, spatiotemporal interpolation, spatiotemporal regression, spatiotemporal process modelling, and spatiotemporal evolution tree. We summarized the principles, input and output, assumptions and computer software of the methods that would be helpful for users to make a choice from the toolbox in spatiotemporal data analysis. When we handle spatiotemporal big data, spatial sampling appears to be one of the core methods, because (1) information in a big data is often too big to be mastered by human physical brain, so has to be summarized by statistics understandable; (2) the users of Weibo, Twitter, internet, mobile phone, mobile vehicles are neither the total population nor a random sample of the total population, therefore, the big data sample is usually biased from the population, and the bias has to be remedied to make a correct inference; (3) the data quality is usually inconsistent within a big data, so there should be a balance between the variances of inferences made by using data with various quality and by using small but high quality data.

This paper created a land use classification system of production-living-ecological spaces based on analyzing the theories of production-living-ecological spaces and commanding the dialectical relationships between land use types and land use functions. The classification system perfectly connected to the state standard of land use classification. Based on this system, we examined the spatial and temporal patterns of production-living-ecological spaces in China between 1990 and 2010. The results showed that: (1) The production spatial pattern almost unchanged between 1990 and 2010, and the production spaces were mainly distributed in the southeast of the Hu Huanyong Line, including Northeast China Plain, northwest Xinjiang, Ningxia, Lanzhou-Xining, Sichuan Basin, Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta, Xiamen-Quanzhou-Zhangzhou, and Pearl River Delta, where China's urban agglomerations and main grain production areas were located in. (2) Living spaces were mainly distributed in China's urban agglomerations and cities, showing a spatial pattern of "high in the east and north regions, while low in the west and south regions". Its spatial expansion varied in different areas. Large-scale expansion of living spaces appeared in the Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, while small-scale and point-type expansion in the major provincial capitals. (3) Ecological spaces were mainly distributed in the northwest of the Hu Huanyong Line, showing a spatial pattern of "high in the west and south regions, while low in the east and north regions". The expansion of ecological spaces were mainly in the Loess Plateau, Hulun Buir Glassland and Tianshan Mountains, while the reduction of ecological spaces were mainly in the Northeast China Plain, North China Plain, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Ningxia and Xinjiang. (4) Industrialization and urbanization were the basic driving powers of changes of China's production-living-ecological spaces. The main reasons for regional spatial differences across China included farmland cultivation in Northwest and Northeast China, rapid urbanization in North China, Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, and reversion of farmland to forestland in the Loess Plateau. This research was valuable for the studies on classification and evaluation of production-living-ecological spaces.

Promoting regional coordinated development strategy is one of the most important strategies in the new period of China. Faced with the reality of unbalanced and insufficient regional development in China, it is objectively necessary to construct one or more main axes supporting the coordinated and balanced development of regions to become the identification line representing the pattern of coordinated regional development. The results show that the Bo-Tai line, the northwest-southeast axis connecting Bole of Xinjiang and Taipei of Taiwan, can be built into a national development backbone line and regional balanced development line, just perpendicular to the Hu Line. In 2016, the area of southwest half and northeast half of Bo-Tai Line accounts for 59:41, while the population accounts for 45:55, the economic aggregate accounts for 40:60, the per capita GDP ratio accounts for 44:56, the population density ratio accounts for 38:62, the economic density ratio accounts for 32:68, and the urbanization level ratio accounts for 48:52. The main average indicators gradually tend to present a balanced development pattern. Further analysis shows that Bo-Tai Line is a strategic shoulder pole connecting two core zones of the Belt and Road, and is the peaceful reunification line of China's national tranquility and Taiwan's return. The Bo-Tai Line is also a solid line supported and connected by comprehensive transportation channels and a Pipa type symmetrical line for the development of cities and urban agglomerations. It is the backbone of the two-way opening up and the linkage development line between land and sea. It is also an important dividing line that promotes the coordinated development of the eastern, central and western regions, and addresses the imbalance and inadequacy of regional development. The Bo-Tai Line plays an irreplaceable strategic role in promoting the coordinated and balanced regional development. It is suggested that the construction of Bo-Tai Line should be included in the national development strategy, and the development strategic plan of Bo-Tai Line should be formulated to fully release the multiple potential functions. We should build three strategic support points (the northwest endpoint, the central strategic node and the southeast endpoint), carry out a comprehensive scientific investigation of the Bo-Tai Line, and strengthen the scientific cognition and publicity, and promote China's development in a higher-level, higher-quality, more coordinated, safer and more civilized direction. And we should make the Bo-Tai Line known to China and the world, and let the Bo-Tai Line truly become the backbone of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Geography studies the distribution of various facts and phenomena with their areal differentiation in composition and sturcture on the earth surface, while cartography deals with the method expression and communication of these facts and phenomena with symbols and graphs. The relation between these two discplines is, therefore, very close and intimate. Yet in the course of their separate developments, they are now going their own way departing from each other further and further.Prom the ancient days to the upper half of the 19th century, maps were the only means of expressing the location of geographical facts. They were a constituent part and also an important tool of geography. Since the end of the 19th century, geography has been at a stage of establishing its branches into many independent disciplines. On the other hand, cartography was making progress on map projection with the help of geodesy and mathematics, on improving techniques of drawing and on detailed to-pographic mapping. The cartographers, thus, become specialists independent from geo-graphers, leaving only a small number of trained geographers still possessing certain ability of making small scale general and thematic maps.Since geographers can easily use the maps which are compiled by cartographers, gradually they are unable to compose maps and to explain their research works in their writings with the help of maps. This is a great loss to the geographical science.On the other hand, the modern cartography not only take interest in the method of drawing and printing maps, but also elaborates in their design, analysis, explana-tion on the composition of thematic maps. But their works are very handicaped by their lacking of sufficient geographical knowledge.This paper calls for a reunion of geography and cartography, lays stress on the necessity of interlinking the training, to have closer co-orperation between the works of geographers and cartographers. The author proposes that for students in the geo-graphy departments, more hours should be alloted for the course of cartography in their curriculum, so that they may acquire enough knowledge on cartography to be able to read, analyse, and explain thematic maps, and to get necessary techinques of map designing. Otherwise the graduates of geography will be unable to take part in the work of map making which is utterly necessary for geographers.

This paper discusses factors affecting current and future port development in China under Chinese market economy and increasingly larger size of ocean freighters and containerization of cargo. These factors are: (1) physical conditions. It is still the most important factor to affect the port development. Water depth, wave condition and land space adjacent to the port are some of the key factors to determine the port development. Along with the process of containerization, the water depth of the navigation channel will be at least 15 m. (2) hinterland. A port should have an extensive hinterland. With the rapid development of economy and transportation in China, the scope of hinterland has changed greatly. (3) containerization. Containerization is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the current ocean transportation; throughput of containers is the most important factor in the ranking of world’s ports. A container ship of the fifth generation which has been put into use in China can load more than 5 000 TEU . Meanwhile, containerization has also changed the distributing way of port cargo, express way instead of traditional shipment will be the main means for distribution. Container shipping lines and frequency of departure of container ships are also two of the important factors to determine the distributing conditions. Because of limited ocean container ship routes and frequency of departure of container ships, Shanghai will be only a regional container shipping center during a given time. (4) fresh water resources. Fresh water resources often determine the port scale. (5) support of great cities and large enterprises. Great cities and large enterprises will supply plenty of cargoes and excellent distributing conditions, their strong support will fasten the port development. (6) port service system. Port service system will ensure the efficient work of the port. Except Hongkong, efficiency of container transport in China is still low and has a long way to go to improve her position in international container shipping market. A preliminary conclusion is : socio economic factors and human actions are exerting greater influence on development of Chinese ports, while the traditional notion “port as the base of city development” is no longer totally true. The construction of shanghai International Shipping Center has great significance in port development of the whole country. It will be a port group, consisting of a center port——Shanghai, two sub center ports Beilun on the south and Taicang on the north, and a number of major tributary and feeder ports. A rational division of port functions is of utmost importance so that favorable conditions fo one port could be used to help less favored ports and duplication in berth construction and irrational competition among ports could be avoided. Shanghai as a center port of Changjiang delta must also be a container hub port. For improving the transportation efficiency and economic benefit, container shipping should be concentrated in Shanghai, for it has several advantages except the limitation of water depth. Beilun should fully take advantage of her deepwater and develop inter continental container traffic, however, its development is limited by the small hinterland, poor port service system, fewer ocean container ship routes, so it needs to be greatly innovated to meet the demand of sub center port of Shanghai international shipping center. Taicang has the best conprehensive conditions. It will be constructed jointly by Jiangsu province, Suzhou city and COSCO. Taicang has the Suzhou city and Wuxi city as its direct hinterland, these two cities will supply plenty of containers, and good distributing conditions. As one of the investors, the construction of International COSCO city in Taicang will be speed up to catch the development of Shanghai International Shipping Center, COSCO is the fourth largest ocean container carrier in the world, with her support, it can be foreseen that new ocean container ship routes will be opened from Taicang to all over the world.

Based on the progress of geographic information systems (GIS) in different countries, thedefinition and basic components of a GIS were involved, and five trends relating to the deve-lopment of GIS were discussed. These trends are as follows:1. The GIS has become an important component of a being perfected technical systemapplied to geography;2. To perform various types of spatial analysis represents a major aim in applicationsand research of GIS;3. The most important technical topic within the field of GIS concerns the spatial datastructures;4. The integration of approaches and procedures within a single system is becoming in-creasingly evident;5. A great attention has been paid to the research on the standardization and artificiai in-telligence techniques.

The comprehensive regionalization of Chinese human geography is based on the rules governing regional differentiation of Chinese physical geography factors. Based on regional differences and similarities in human factors, this study divides the whole country into two levels of relatively independent, complete and organically linked human geographic units. As a fundamental, comprehensive, cutting-edge, practical and important task, the comprehensive regionalization of human geography highlights the characteristics, regional and sub-regional features, complexity and variety of spatial differences between factors of Chinese human geography. It is capable of promoting the development of human geography based on local conditions, providing basic scientific support to national and local development strategies, such as the Belt and Road Strategy, new urbanization and environmental awareness, and creating a sound geopolitical environment in key areas. Using results from existing physical and human geography zoning studies, and in accordance with the principles of synthesis, dominant factors, the relative consistency of the natural environment, the relative consistency of economic and social development, the consistency of the regional cultural landscape, the continuity of spatial distribution and the integrity of county-level administrative divisions, and taking as its basis the division of human geography into 10 major factors (natural condition, the economy, population, culture, ethnicity, agriculture, transportation, urbanization, the settlement landscape and administrative divisions), this paper constructs an index system for the comprehensive regionalization of Chinese human geography through a combination of top-down and bottom-up zoning and spatial clustering analysis. In this study, Chinese human geography is divided into eight regions (first level) and 66 sub-regions (second level). The eight human geography regions are (I) Northeast China, (II) North China, (III) East China, (IV) Central China, (V) South China, (VI) Northwest China, (VII) Southwest China, and (VIII) Qinghai and Tibet. This zoning proposal fills gaps in studies involving the non-comprehensive regionalization of Chinese human geography. Each human geography region and sub-region has different topographical, climatic, ecological, population, urbanization, economic development, settlement landscape, regional cultural and ethno-religious attributes. This proposal on the comprehensive regionalization of Chinese human geography dovetails closely with previous studies on comprehensive regionalization in Chinese physical geography, Chinese economic zoning, and Chinese agriculture zoning. It shows that, under the dual roles of nature and humans, there are certain rules of regional differentiation that govern the comprehensive regionalization of Chinese human geography.

In this paper, a model of simulating the effects of topography and elevation on precipi-tation is presented.

The study aims to investigate the spatio-temporal changes in crop patterns in China since 1980. In doing so, the analysis methods of time-series trend and spatial cluster were used to cover the major eleven crops at county scale. The results indicate that (1) There are 16 kinds of crop combinations ranking in the China's top 10 during the past 30 years. Yet since 2002, the simplified cropping structure has been gradually replaced by the multiple cropping structure, which suggests an increase in the diversity index of crop patterns. In 1980, about 82.7% of China's counties have a similar crop pattern which is composed of rice, wheat, corn and their combinations, however, this pattern largely changed after 2002 due to the increase in the planting area of fruit and vegetables. (2) In the same period, rice planting area of 47% of the counties, wheat planting area of 61% of the counties of and corn area of 29.6% of the counties experience a significant decrease, while other crops show an increasing trend. As a result, rice-dominated cereal crops in China are slightly adjusted to the coexistence of rice, wheat and maize crops. In particular, maize area proportion shows a significant change, which forms a so-called "corn decreased belt” spanning from northeast to southwest of China. Urbanization had an important impact on crop patterns as fruit and vegetable planting areas rapidly grow so as to meet the increasing demands in urbanized areas. (3) Crop patterns also show an obvious spatial cluster effect in China's 1300 counties. The proportion of high cluster accounts for 2.86%, 5.64%, 6.11%, 4.53%, 1.62%, 7.77%, 8.24%, 12%, 10%, 1.41% and 9.35% of China's counties for rice, wheat, maize, soybean, fibers, cotton, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, sugars and oils, respectively. These crops are distributed in Northeast China, Xinjiang, Northern Shaanxi Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the metropolis areas. This finding of this study can support the decision making in agricultural restructuring and adaptation to climate change.

The Altay Mts. are situated at the northern borders of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. The geographical coordinate of the studying area is: 86?5’ to 8811’ east lo.ngitu.de and 48°3’ to 49°1‘ north latitude. With an area amounts to 5588 km2. On the basis of the scientific data collected by the investigation in 1980, this paper deals with some problems of the vertical zonation in this area.The neotectonic movement occurred since the end of Tertiary and acted upon the Altay Mts. in the form of vertical movement have caused intense uplift of the fault-block mountains. Altitude of the mountains generally exceed 4000 m.The vertical zones on southern slope of the western Altay Mts. belong to a temperate semiarid type. Moisture and temperature, type of plants and soils are taken as main indicators in the division of the vertical zonation. Ten vertical zones may by recognized on the southern slope of the Altay Mts.When the spectra of vertical zones of the western Altay area are compared with those of the eastern Altay Mts., of the Tien-Shan Mts. and of the Kunlun Mts., mainly due to the increase of aridity and the lower latitudes, the altitude of some vertical zones of the other mountains are higher than the western Altay.In this paper, the relation of the vertical zones to land utilization is also described.

The Second Chinese Glacier Inventory (SCGI) was compiled based on remote sensing images after 2004 including Landsat TM/ETM+ and ASTER images, and the digital elevation models (DEMs) from SRTM. The SCGI shows that there are 48,571 glaciers with a total area of 5.18×10⁴ km² and ice volume of 4.3×10³-4.7×10³ km³ in China (including glaciers measured from 1:50,000 or 1:100,000 topographic maps made from the 1960s to the 1980s because of no high quality remote sensing images for the contemporary glacier inventories). The number of glaciers with the area below 0.5 km² reaches 33,061 and accounts for the majority part (66.07%) of glaciers in China. Glaciers with areas between 1.0 km² and 50.0 km² are totaled as ~3.40×10⁴ km² (~2.65×10³ km³ in ice volume) and constitute the main part of glaciers in China. The Yengisogat Glacier (359.05 km²), located in the Shaksgam Valley, north slope of the Karakoram Mountain, is the largest glacier in China. The glaciers are spatially distributed in 14 mountains and plateaus in western China. The Kunlun Mountains has the largest number of glaciers in China, followed by Tianshan Mountains, Nyainqêntanglha Range, the Himalayas and Karakoram. Glaciers in the above five mountains account for 72.26% of the total glacier number in China, however, over 55% of the total area of glaciers and 59% of the total ice storage in China are concentrated in the Kunlun Mountains, Nyainqêntanglha Range and Tianshan Mountains. The number and area of glaciers in Karakoram Mountains are less than those in the Himalayas, but the volume of the former is more than that of the latter because the glaciers in the Karakoram are generally larger. Some 4/5 of the total area of glaciers in China is mainly distributed in an altitudinal band between 4500-6500 m a.s.l. with regional differences depending on the general elevations of various mountains. Analogously, there is an obvious difference of glaciers in basins. The first level basin having the most glaciers is the East Asia interior drainage area (5Y) which occupies ~40% of glaciers in China. The Yellow River basin (5J) has the fewest glaciers where only 164 with an area of 126.72 km² are distributed. Xinjiang and Xizang autonomous regions are the two provincial units rich in glaciers, with ~9/10 of the total area and ice storage of glaciers in China.

The Yellow River Basin and the areas along the Yellow River play an important strategic role in national development. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC, delivered an important speech at the symposium on ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin in Zhengzhou, which is of great strategic significance. This paper gives a preliminary understanding of the comprehensive governance and the sustainable development of the Yellow River Basin. It points out that the task of the comprehensive and profound transformation and development of the Yellow River Basin in the new era is still arduous, and change of concept is required. Continuing to promote the clean and efficient use of energy, promoting industrial development in accordance with local conditions, preventing extensive development and protecting cultivated land resources should be regarded as important measures to strengthen the comprehensive management and guarantee the sustainable development of the Yellow River Basin. It is believed that the "Yellow River Economic Belt" does not exist at the national economic level, and it is not appropriate to identify "the Yellow River Delta" as a national strategy.

Major Function Oriented Zoning (MFOZ) is the blueprint for the future developmnt and protection pattern of China's territory, and has been raised to from major function zones planning to major function zoning strategy and major function zoning institution. From 2004 to 2014, the author organized a series of research projects to compose MFOZ for the country, studied basic theory of regional function and MFOZ technical process, and proposed that space controlling zones of national and provincial scales can be divided into four types: urbanized zones, foodstuff-security zones, ecological safety zones, cultural and natural heritage zones. On this basis, major function zones of county scale should be transferred to optimized, prioritized, restricted, and prohibited zones. In this paper, a regional function identification index system comprising nine quantitative indicators (including water resources, land resources, ecological importance, ecological fragility, environment capacity, disaster risk, economic development level, population concentration and transport superiority) and one qualitative indicator of strategic choice is developed. Based on the single index evaluation, comprehensive evaluation using regional function suitability evaluation index is conducted, aiming at testing several key parameters including lower limit of protection zones and upper limit of development zones at the provincial level. In addition, a planning-oriented zoning method of major function zones is also discussed, which has brought the first MFOZ planning in China. According to the MFOZ caliber, it is forecasted that national spatial development intensity will rise from 3.48% in 2010 to 3.91% in 2020. Furthermore, according to caliber of the provincial integrated MFOZ planning, the area of optimized, prioritized and restricted zones accounts for 1.48%, 13.60% and 84.92%, respectively, and that of urbanized, foodstuff-security and ecological safety zones accounts for 15.08%, 26.11% and 58.81%, respectively. In combination of analyses of development level, resources and environmental carrying status and quality of the people's livelihood, the main characteristics of MFOZ were identified. Through verification, MFOZ draft of national and provincial scales, which is interactively accomplished with "MFOZ Technical Process" put forward by the author, is mostly above 80% identical with what have been forecasted.

On account of vast territory and complex physico-geographical conditions as well aagreat human impacts, the distribution of mountain vegetation in China is very compli-cated. Yet, law of zonation still holds true. The structure and character of mountainvegetation change along two directions, i.e., from south to north and from east to west.In the eastern part of China altitudinal vegetation-belt spectrums change mainlyfrom south to north.1. Warmth-like types of altitudinal vegetation-belt spectrums being replaced bycold-resistant types with alternation of basic vertical vegetational belts from evergreenbroad-leaved forests to deciduous needle-leaved forests.2. Diminution of number of altitudinal belts and simplification of their structures.3. Lowering down of altitudes of altitudinal vegetational belts. On mountains inwestern part of subtropical zone lies the highest altitude of timberline in the world, witha maximum altitude of over 4,400 m above the sea level. It lowers down towards northby over 100 m per degree of latitude.4. Occurrence of dominant belts in vertical profiles of mountain vegetation de-pends upon the nature of horizontal zones. The dominant belts in typical geographicalzones are certainly the basic vertical vegetational belts. And in transitional zones theyoccur above the basic vertical belts.While in the arid and semi-arid western part of China, changes of altitudinal vege-tation-belt spectrums are quite different. They take place chiefly from east to west. Itis worthwhile mentioning that structures of vegetation-belt spectrums are very simpli-fied, steppes and deserts occupy the dominant position on mountains and all altitudinalvegetational belts ascend in this direction.