本文用主成分分析和聚类分析方法对广州市社会空间结构进行因子生态分析。结果表明：人口密集程度、科技文化水平、工人干部比重、房屋住宅质量、家庭人口结构是形成广州社会区类型的五个主要因子；广州社会区的空间模式呈向东曳长的同心椭圆态势，城市发展的历史过程、城市用地布局和住房分配制度是影响这个空间模式形成的主导机制。

The approach to studying the social spatial structure of cities has become very popularin the western countries since the first study of social area analysis was undertaken by Shevkyet al. in 1950s. During 1960s, this approach area was developed by using the technique of fac-torial ecological study. This technique has two characteristics. First, a large number of va-riables are used in the factor analysis or the principal components analysis, in order to extractsome major factors of social and residential differentiation. Second, it places much greateremphasis on the spatial patterns associated with those factors.