Evolutionary economic geography has proposed the principle of relatedness. According to the degree of relatedness, the regional industrial development paths can be divided into related diversification and unrelated diversification. However, the current studies neglect the symmetrical nature of relatedness. According to the degree of symmetry between two related industries, related diversification can be divided into symmetrically related diversification and asymmetrically related diversification. Using Chinese industrial enterprises database from 1998 to 2012, this paper investigates symmetrically related diversification and asymmetrically related diversification's relationship with regional economic complexity. The result shows that: (1) The regional industrial development paths are dominated by related diversification rather than unrelated diversification. The number of related new industries in China accounted for about 60%-70% of the total number of new industries from 1998 to 2012. In terms of related diversification, positively asymmetrically related diversification takes the largest part, while symmetrically related diversification takes the second largest part. The number of positively asymmetrically related new industries accounts for about 60% of the total number of related new industries, and the number of symmetrically related new industries accounts for about 35% of the total number of related new industries over the time period from 1998 to 2012. (2) Industries with higher technological complexity show stronger symmetry in their related diversification, while industries with lower technological complexity show stronger positive asymmetry in their related diversification. (3) Regions with higher economic complexity usually have more unrelated diversification and its related diversification shows stronger symmetry. Regions with lower economic complexity usually have more related diversification and this related diversification shows stronger positive asymmetry. This study can contribute to the development of the principle of relatedness in evolutionary economic geography and provide suggestions for policymakers in terms of the industrial upgrading of regions.

The driving force behind coordination is that the regional coordination policies can benefit the weak. Since the implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development policy, its actual effect has been questioned. Some negative views suggest that this policy has only benefited Beijing and Tianjin, but has not promoted the development of Hebei. In response to this question, this paper takes the implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development policy in 2015 as a natural experiment, using synthetic control method and panel data from 2010 to 2020, empirically evaluates the policy effect and spatial heterogeneity of this policy on economic growth, industrial structure optimization and air quality improvement of Hebei. Results indicate that: (1) The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development policy did not significantly drive the economic growth of Hebei, but promoted the optimization of industrial structure and the improvement of air quality, showing a trend of high-quality coordinated development. (2) The policy effect on prefecture-level cities of Hebei is different due to their distance from Beijing and Tianjin, showing a "center-periphery" diffusion pattern with Beijing and Tianjin as the core. (3) The cities close to Beijing have obtained obvious effect of industrial structure optimization, and the cities close to Tianjin have obtained obvious effect of economic growth. Cities around Beijing and Tianjin are significantly better than cities in southern Hebei in terms of air quality improvement. In the future, we need to view this policy with a new concept of high-quality development, scientifically promote the industrial transfer and undertaking within the urban agglomeration, and continuously consolidate the basic conditions for economic development of Hebei. It is also necessary to achieve spatial equity and adapt to local conditions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordination.

Development zone (area) is a growth pole of economic development and a platform for institutional innovation, and its transformation and development play an important role in developing China's high-quality economy and building an innovative country. This paper takes Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) as the research object, uses the comprehensive evaluation model to measure its transformation level, and the obstacle degree model to explore and analyze the obstacle factors that may affect TEDA's transformation. The results are as follows: (1) TEDA's transformation and development breaks through the limited life cycle of export processing zone (EPZ), and prolongs the life cycle with new forms and modes by transforming and upgrading the course from EPZ to comprehensive development zone, industrial new city and comprehensive new city; (2) Analysis of the overall developmental course suggests that the comprehensive transformation level of TEDA was low from 2005 to 2019, the level was on the rise from 2005 to 2013, but remained stagnant from 2014 to 2019. (3) Developmental stages are characterized by variance of development and their main obstacles. Specifically, during the period of 2005-2013, the factor-, benefit-, environment- and industry-driving forces remain relatively low, which is mainly caused by weak utilization of domestic capital, low per capita GDP, poor environmental quality, and insufficient high-tech enterprises. In contrast, during the period from 2014 to 2019, the factor-, environment- and innovation-driving forces for transformation and development are insufficient. The main obstacle factors include a decline in quality of foreign capital utilization, insufficient investment in infrastructure, scientific and technological development. Accordingly, this article raised the proposals of actively attracting foreign capital, playing the leading role of domestic capital, improving infrastructure construction to strengthen the joint protection and governance of ecological environment, increasing investment of independent innovation to promote the transformation of the development zone. The research conclusions have theoretical and reference value for the transformation development and relevant research of TEDA and other development zones.

Utilizing location data from USPTO patents spanning 1790 to 2022, this study incorporates theories from complexity science, lifecycle analysis, and geographical nature. It employs methods including urban scaling laws, scale-adjusted metropolitan indicators, and geographic detectors to construct a performance index for United States science and technology innovation (STI) centers, and analyze their spatiotemporal pattern evolution and driving mechanisms. The results reveal that: (1) Innovation scaling laws across cities have evolved into significant super-linear relationships, indicating that larger cities have higher per capita innovation outputs, thus demonstrating a pronounced scale-increasing effect of STI. (2) The performance index facilitates cross-scale comparisons of urban STI capabilities, illustrating the complete lifecycle of STI centers from incubation, expansion, decline, to revival. Throughout the study period, San Francisco CSA progressively surpassed New York CSA, Boston CSA, and Chicago CSA, becoming a leading STI center in the United States. (3) The spatial distribution of the performance index for US STI centers reveals a "north-superior, south-inferior" pattern. Factors of second nature, such as urbanization, internationalization, and socio-economic development, along with urban polycentricity, positively influence the performance index. In contrast, population density and first nature factors like climate and topography negatively correlate with the performance index. Under the influence of path dependence and cumulative causation, the performance of US STI centers exhibits a "Matthew effect", exacerbating the north-south divide.

With the continuous development and application of information technology, online shopping has emerged as a significant force, bringing immense economic potential. The convenience offered by online shopping, such as the ability to shop anytime, anywhere, and access to a vast array of products, is reshaping consumer habits and expectations. Despite the continued growth of online shopping, the role of physical stores remains significant. Physical stores offer tangible benefits that online shopping often struggle to replicate. These include the ability to see, touch, and try products before purchasing, as well as the immediacy of taking items home without having to wait for shipping. The relationship between online shopping and physical shopping remains a hot topic in academia. Although there have been relevant studies in China, most of them are based on the survey data from individual communities or cities, lacking large-scale and long-term systematic research from a national perspective. Furthermore, there is a lack of heterogeneous comparisons between different regions. Drawing on large-scale time utilization survey data of 29 provincial-level regions in 2017 and 2021, this paper analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution of online shopping behavior and physical shopping behavior of China's residents, and examines the influence of online shopping on residents' physical shopping behavior. The results show that: (1) There are significant spatial differences in the characteristics of residents' online and physical shopping behaviors. The standard deviation ellipse of online shopping and physical shopping behavior shows an obvious "northeast-southwest" distribution pattern, with the gravity center gradually shifting northward during the study period. (2) In 2017, online shopping had a significant complementary effect on physical shopping. But in 2021, both complementary and neutral effects coexisted. (3) There are significant differences in the impact of online shopping on physical shopping between urban and rural residents, and residents among different regions. There is also a coexistence of complementary effects and neutral effects. This paper clarifies the relationship between online shopping and physical shopping in China, provides an in-depth understanding of the changes of urban space in the internet era, and helps promote the spatial transformation of physical commerce.

Deconstructing rural spatial characteristics is the precondition for building rural spatial governance system in the new era, and multi-scale rural spatial characteristics and its governance path would effectively support the modernization of the national governance system. Based on the comprehensive, regional and mobile thinking paradigm of geography, this paper deconstructs the multi-scale rural spatial characteristics, identifies its internal operating logics, summarizes its governance dilemmas, constructs a multi-scale rural spatial governance framework that is based on geographical analysis paradigm, explores feasible governance paths, and constructs a multi-scale rural spatial governance system research plan, namely, "characteristics identification-dilemma analysis-governance framework-governance path". The paper finds that: (1) to analyze the operating logics of the multi-scale rural space through the comprehensive, regional and mobile analytical thinking of geography, it is necessary to understand the mechanism of action of scale synthesis, scale differentiation and scale flow to the multi-scale rural spatial characteristics, highlighting the comprehensive characteristics of rural space, strengthening rural spatial heterogeneity, and integrating rural spatial mobility. (2) The lacking urban-rural spatial overall planning, unsmooth spatial mobile network and not-reflected different types of rural spatial value are the key dilemmas in the rural spatial governance, which need to be addressed. (3) The multi-scale rural spatial governance framework of "comprehensive spatial governance-spatial zoning governance-spatial mobile governance" could effectively solve the problems of urban-rural spatial integration, regional spatial coordination and spatial network blockage. (4) Integrating urban-rural comprehensive governance, innovating regulation control to improve regional governance and balancing the configuration of spatial development right to achieve mobile spatial governance are feasible paths for multi-scale rural space governance. In conclusion, clarifying the multi-scale rural spatial characteristics in the new era and constructing a scientific governance system could provide theoretical support to promote integrated urban-rural development and rural vitalization strategy.

Urban-rural integrated development is an advanced stage in the evolution of the urban-rural relationship, and it is also the basic path and main goal for the implementation of rural revitalization. Scientifically understanding and identifying the integration stage and its current level of urban-rural development in China is the prerequisite basis for promoting urban-rural integrated development and rural revitalization. Based on the concept connotation, this paper constructed a multi-dimensional evaluation system of urban-rural integrated development at the prefecture level. The process status and spatiotemporal divergent characteristics of urban-rural integrated development in 336 prefecture-level regions in China from 2000-2018 were portrayed and revealed. The results show that: (1) The current state of urban-rural integrated development in China is generally at a low-to-middle level, showing a heterogeneous spatiotemporal pattern with apparent gradient divergence. The integrated development level of the Pearl River Delta, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and the Shandong Peninsula is high, but the regions distributed to the west of the "Hu Line" develops slowly. (2) According to the level and characteristics of integrated development, the 366 prefecture-level regions can be divided into four types: integrated development, tending integration, imbalanced development, and lagging development, with a more active transformation between the latter three types. (3) The development level of urban-rural economic integration is higher than that of demographic and social integration, while the development process of urban-rural spatial and ecological integration shows some natural zonal divergent characteristics. Finally, we identified the problem areas for different types of integrated development and explored the regional promotion path of urban-rural integrated development, which could provide scientific references for the strategies of regional urban-rural development and rural revitalization.

The rational flow of urban-rural factors is conducive to optimize the urban-rural relationship and promote rural revitalization and urban-rural integrated development. Based on the theory of social reproduction, this study defined the connotation and flow types of urban-rural factors, proposed the measurement method of urban-rural factor flow, and quantitatively analyzed the spatial pattern and evolution characteristics of urban-rural factor flow in China. The results showed that urban-rural factor flow referring to the changes of factors affecting urban and rural development can be divided into three types of internal flow, mutual flow, and inter-regional flow. Significant spatial differences and a gradual increase of flow intensity existed in the mutual flow of population, capital, technology, and agricultural products between urban and rural China, while great spatial differences were found in the inter-regional flow of population, capital, technology, and agricultural products without conspicuously increased flow intensity. The intensity and structure of urban-rural factor flow were comprehensively affected by adjusting the scale and structure of social reproduction under the regulation of natural resource endowment and human regulation. The free two-way flow between urban and rural areas can be realized from the aspects of selecting reasonable human intervention means and optimizing the allocation of factors in the social reproduction process, according to regional factor endowment differences and factor flow characteristics at different scales.

Despite the initial development goals achieved, China's macro-economy is still deeply affected by the external environment and stuck in its own structure at the same time. In retrospect, not until 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China did China's budding regional economy witness the prominence of a fixed development pattern shifting from a spontaneous to an actuating one. After comparing the three regional economic practices, this paper finds that each development stage has its corresponding development strategy. At the same time, several development patterns, namely, the coastal and inland areas, the three regions, and four plates were formed accordingly. Furthermore, through combing the literature and historical facts, this paper determines the historical starting point, division criteria and division scheme of China's regional economic development before summarizing three main lines and also contradictions therein: the government-market relations against the background of market reform, the coastal-inland relations against the tide of economic zonation, and the urban-rural relations against the trend of urbanization. Based on the above, the paper constructs a three-dimensional model out of the spatio-termporal process of China's regional development before proposing new historical stages from the perspective of economic system modernization. These historical stages are: industrial economy, special zone economy, district economy, regional economy and urban network economy. Finally, from the urbanization angle, this paper concludes that for different urbanization stages, regional policies should be industrial policies, factor policies, fiscal and tax policies sequentially.

The actor-network theory (ANT) provides a new approach for multidisciplinary research by equally treating human and non-human actors and exploring the dynamic relationships between them. This paper incorporates ANT into geographical research on border trade and develops an ANT-based framework for analyzing the development of border trade, with a focus on the agency of state or regional actors. These efforts contribute to ANT's attention to the particularity of human actors and the expansion of its research scale to the macro level. The case study of Tibet's border trade at NathuLa, Gyirong, and Burang in the 21st century is used to examine and compare the interactions among heterogeneous actors in China, India, and Nepal, and to suggest ways to enhance the trade. The main conclusions can be drawn as follows: (1) The analytical framework shows that, led by state or regional actors, the development of border trade is still jointly driven and influenced by local and non-human actors through the translation process of problematization, interest, enrollment, mobilization, and dissidence. (2) In the case study, as the focal actors, the central governments of China, Nepal and India uniformly lead the translation processes and interactions of heterogeneous actors, which are also contained by non-human actors like international relations among the three countries, fragile geographical environments and inadequate infrastructure in the Himalayan region. The actor-network of China-Nepal border trade is built up better than that of China-India border trade. In this regard, border trade in Tibet should continue to be optimized in constructing friendly inter-state relations, scientific and strategic research on port planning and development, infrastructure construction on transportation and market, and other human or non-human aspects.

With the coming of digital economy era, the development and application of information technology revolution, such as 5G, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, production and living of human are being deeply affected. The data center is an important new infrastructure that integrates data storage, analysis, processing and application. It is increasingly important in the global data value chain and plays a strong supporting role in the global digital development. In this context, it is of great significance to clarify the multi-spatial scale expansion laws and location selection mechanism of global data centers, and layout them scientifically and reasonably. This paper integrates spatial statistics, spatial analysis, and spatial measurement methods, and conducts empirical research on the spatio-temporal differentiation and influencing factors of global data center expansion from 2005 to 2020. The results show that: (1) The spatial expansion trend of the global data center is obvious, and the growth center and the economic center move eastward, forming three major growth cores in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. From the perspective of city scale, city clusters and metropolitan areas are the main spatial carriers of expansion, while a few cities such as Beijing, Tokyo, and Shanghai are the central hubs. (2) The spatial expansion characteristics of the data centers can be divided into contact expansion mode, point growth mode and agglomeration growth mode. (3) The location selection of data center spatial expansion is jointly affected by market size, element supply, and operating environment. However, the measurement method and spatial scale factors in selecting a country or a city are not completely consistent. From the perspective of global scale, market size is the most important factor, and the influence of element supply and operating environment show different stage characteristics; city scale is significantly affected by market size, element supply, and security level.

Most of the existing research focuses on local or non-local forces that promote regional development, but few studies explore the "global-local" interactions of import spillovers as external knowledge, leaving the specific mechanism unclear. Based on China's customs data from 2000 to 2016, the import spillover effects on Chinese manufacturing industries can be better investigated. With cognitive proximity as a tool of measurement and classification, import products are sorted into three categories: same products, related products and unrelated products. We found that the import spillover effects of same products and related products can significantly increase the probability of export entry and reveal comparative advantage enhancement in city-product dimension, while the effect of unrelated products remains negative. Furthermore, the mediation effect of urban related production capacity is verified. The import of the same products and related products can improve the urban related production capacity, while the import of unrelated products plays the opposite effect. In addition, the process of import spillover effects promoting the expansion of export products shows significant heterogeneity at the product and regional levels. To give full play to the positive role of import spillover effect and avoid its negative role, local governments should build industrial chains around local core products and optimize import structure and mode. Strengthening the cultivation of local technology R&D and innovation capabilities, and improving the local ability to absorb, transform and utilize external knowledge is also helpful. After meeting the local import demand, the resource competition and crowding out effect caused by the excessive introduction of irrelevant products should also be paid attention to. Finally, differentiated import modes and strategies should be adopted according to the nature of export products, regional industrial base and export development level, so as to create a spatial aggregation form with close technological links for enterprises and industries, enhance cognitive proximity, and promote the flow and dissemination of tacit knowledge.

The rural human settlement is an indivisible part of the urban-rural human settlements, and it is also the comprehensive embodiment of the rural man-land relationship. Based on the theoretical framework of the formation of rural human settlement resilience and combined independent weight method and regression analysis, this paper builds an index system of the formation of rural human settlement resilience. This system comprehensively measured the rural human settlements in the Dongting Lake area and analyzes the spatial differentiation characteristics of resilience and its formation mechanism. The results show that: (1) There are evident spatial differences in the degree of resilience formation of rural human settlement in the study area. Resilience value varies based on the distance to the lake areas, the nearer the higher, the further the lower, which demonstrated the spatial differentiation characteristics of "inner high and outer low". (2) Based on the measured results of flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness, the resilience formation level in the Dongting Lake is divided into 3 ring belts in space: Huarong-Linxiang ring belt, Lixian-Pingjiang ring belt and Shimen-Heshan ring belt. (3) Rural human settlement is affected by the combination of exogenous and endogenous factors, which, in the form of mutation, continuation and transformation, have positive and negative effects on the resilience formation, so as to facilitate or not to facilitate the formation of rural human settlement resilience. On the basis of the geographical location, resource endowment, economic and social differences of three ring belts in the Dongting Lake, the corresponding strategies are put forward according to the principle of adapting to local conditions. In the process of optimizing rural human settlement, the monitoring, prediction and anti-disturbance capabilities of rural human settlements are enhanced, the resilience is continuously improved and the sustainable development of rural areas is promoted.

To realize high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin, the study on economic differences should not be confined to the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. In addition, possible differences under various scales should be analyzed. The difference between border counties and non-border counties is an important aspect which needs further study. Therefore, nighttime light data were used to describe the economic development level from the core-periphery perspective, and the spatial autocorrelation method was used to identify the differences. Then an index of the difference in economic development was constructed to describe the evolution of core-periphery structure in the economic development from 1992 to 2019. Finally, the regression model was employed to explore how the evolution is driven by factors including natural endowment, location, traffic, industrial structure and government capacity. The results show that: (1) There are obvious economic differences between the upper, middle and lower reaches of the basin. However, with the scale decreases, there are economic differences between provincial capitals and non-provincial capitals, and between provincial border areas and non-border areas, highlighting the core-periphery structure. (2) The core-periphery structure of county economic development in the Yellow River Basin is weakening. In terms of provinces, Shandong's economy is developing well, the periphery and core counties are developing in a balanced way, and the core-periphery structure is weak. The core-periphery structure in Henan, Shanxi and Ningxia is relatively stable. However, the development of border counties and core areas in Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Qinghai is unbalanced, showing a core-periphery polarization. (3) Natural endowments and location are the basis for the formation and development of core-periphery structure. However, the improvement of transportation, industrial structure and government capacity have a positive effect on narrowing the economic gap and delaying the polarization of the core-periphery structure. Therefore, strengthening the construction of transportation infrastructure, adjusting industrial structure and improving government capacity can help reduce the economic differences in the Yellow River Basin.

International Development Studies refers to the study of the localization process of development experience and knowledge of relatively developed countries in developing countries, and is a classic topic of Western geographic research. This paper reviews and summarizes the disciplinary development of International Development Studies since the mid-20th century, including the background and process of its emergence, and its current disciplinary pattern. It also systematically discusses four phases of evolution in international development knowledge, including the modernization theory phase (1950s-1970s), the neoliberal phase (1980s-1990s), the neo-structural phase (2000s), and the new modernization theory phase (2010s-present). Drawing on the Western experience and considering the current rise of China, we suggest that China has reached a new stage when it needs to provide international development knowledge to developing countries and should actively promote the study of International Development Geography. In relation to the requirement of constructing the Belt and Road Initiative towards a new stage of high-quality development, and based on the disciplinary advantages of geographic research, we propose four directions of future research in International Development Geography, including China's regional development experience and spatial governance model, the modernization geography of developing countries, case studies of major overseas projects of the Belt and Road construction, and the geography of international development financing.

Carrying out the functional regionalization of scientific and technological innovation in China is a basic work to grasp the overall configuration and guide the improvement of China's scientific and technological innovation capabilities. However, there are still large gaps in related research. Under the background of China's innovation-driven development strategy, the planning and construction of regional scientific and technological centers is considered an important task at present, which makes the functional regionalization of scientific and technological innovation in China urgently needed due to its guiding significance. From the perspective of intercity innovation cooperation network, combined with the existing geographical regionalization theories and innovation geography research, this paper devices a functional regionalization method for scientific and technological innovation in China by applying the dynamically contiguity-constrained hierarchical agglomerative clustering and the graph partitioning technology based on modularity. With the intercity patent cooperation data of 357 cities in China from 2017 to 2019 and their spatial contiguity data as an input, the topological relationship in the network space and the positional relationship in geographical space are combined to form regions covering continuous earth's surface which are tightly knit inside and show prominent regional characteristics in the scientific and technological innovation field. Based on the topological structure analysis of the urban network and the comparison between the regionalization results of the binary network and the weighted network, a regionalization scheme containing 4 first-level functional regions and 20 second-level functional regions is formulated. According to the regionalization, China is divided into four functional plates of scientific and technological innovation: north, south, east and west, each of which contains 4 to 6 secondary functional regions. The delimitation of scientific and technological innovation according to the regionalization results is highly consistent with the administrative divisions on the provincial level, providing reference for government to plan the overall management of scientific and technological innovation on macroscale. It is suggested that in the future, relying on the construction of the functional regions and the leadership of the regional central cities, all regions should formulate regional innovation and development strategies according to local conditions, and actively contribute to the implementation of the national innovation-driven development strategy.

Green technology innovation is the first driving force to promote green development and harmonious coexistence between human and nature. Green technology innovation is the core issue of environmental economics, innovation economics, innovation management and other research fields. It is also one of the emerging topics in the field of environmental economic geography in recent years. Overall, the research on enterprise level is dominant, while the research on spatial scale is relatively less. In this paper, by deriving green patent applications for measuring green technology innovation from the Wanfang Patent Database, the spatial and temporal characteristics and its determinants of green technology innovation in China's city system from 2007 to 2017 are explored. The results indicate that technologies related to buildings has dominated the development of environmental innovation in China's city system, while technologies in the field of greenhouse gases and water adaptation were quite unpopular throughout China. In 2007, China's environmental innovation was dominated by individuals and enterprises. By 2017, enterprises have become the main body of China's environmental innovation, highlighting the essential characteristics of enterprises as the subject of environmental innovation. In space, the geography of environmental innovation in China's city system presents a strong spatial imbalance feature, a tripolar pattern dominated by the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin region has become increasingly prominent. In terms of determinants, spatial Durbin model regression results reflect that there are significant spatial spillover effects and path dependence characteristics in China's environmental innovation. Environmental regulation intensity, city size, market size, technological innovation level, FDI, and air quality have obvious positive effects on urban environmental innovation, while the industrial structure dominated by secondary industry has obvious inhibitory effect on urban environmental innovation.

Decades of urbanization and economic growth in central, western and coastal regions of China have transformed the increasing flow of return migration across places, which exerted a profound impact on regional development prospects. Thus, elaborating the return motivation of internal migrants is of great theoretical and practical significance. From the perspective of "distance" in geography, this paper introduces two additional non-economic dimensions of distance, namely, cultural and administrative distances, between places of destination and origin into the study on migrants' return-to-hometown intention, and focuses on the effects from cultural, administrative and economic borders on return intention. Our measurement combines dialect, geographical and socio-economic datasets with a theoretical framework of multidimensional distances that influence return migration intention. We conduct an empirical analysis using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey and the method of logistic regression modeling. The results show that multidimensional distances between places of destination and origin exert a significant impact on the return intention of migrants, which is consistent with the theoretical predictions. Economic distance restrains return migration intention, while geographic, administrative, and cultural distances promote the intention of migrants to return. This finding remains robust after accounting for possible measurement errors in explanatory variables. The estimated effects of multidimensional distances on return intention vary with the characteristics of individual migrants and destination cities. In terms of individual heterogeneity, the negative effect of economic distance on return migration intention increases, whereas the positive influence of geographic distance gradually decreases with increases in the age and level of education of migrants. In terms of urban heterogeneity, the promoting effect of administrative distance on return intention tends to decrease, and the improvement of urban economic level decreases the positive effect of geographic distance on return intention with the increase of urban population size. This study strengthens the understanding of the phenomenon of return migration under "human-environment" interactions, and helps to enrich the study of migration in geography.

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a vivid testimony to the continuous inheritance of Chinese civilization. The study of ICH from the perspective of the geographical environment, spatial relationships and diachronic development is of great significance for understanding objectively the reasons for the formation of spatial distribution patterns of ICH and the pathways and extent of its spread; as a consequence, such information can help us improve our understanding of the integrity and historical continuity of Chinese culture. From a geography perspective, this study seeks to explore the spatial patterns of ICH based on knowledge concerning the extent of spreading of ICH. At the same time, the evolution tree model is used to express the spatiotemporal development of ICH in a simple, clear and visual way. Also, the factors influencing the spatial distribution of ICH are analyzed. The main findings are as follows: (1) The national intangible cultural heritage is concentrated mainly in areas with a high level of development, prominent national characteristics, profound cultural accumulation, and excellent natural conditions. The North China Plain and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Plain constitute the main focal centers for ICH. (2) A high internal consistency is found in Beijing and Tibet, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang exhibit the characteristics of large dispersion and small aggregation. (3) The distribution centers for ICH in China generally present as pathways running from west to east and north to south. (4) Changes in the ecological environment, population migration, changes in the patterns of economic development and the chaos brought about by war are the key factors which have influenced the spread of ICH. Appreciation of the aforementioned features allows us to gain consensus on the development and evolution of ICH, and hence can justify how we allocate funds to promote ICH projects, paying particular attention to researching the historical context, and preserving the extraction of the local characteristics of ICH.

Clarifying the spatial distribution of middle and higher vocational education resources and their influencing factors is an important proposition for improving China's vocational education system and promoting the balanced development of regional vocational education. This study attempts to fill in the knowledge gap that the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of vocational education resources at the county level is underexamined. We firstly generate a matched data set of multiple factors at the county level, including population, economy, middle and higher vocational education resources at China's county-level scale. Secondly, we analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of middle and higher vocational education resources in nearly two decades and then identify the quantitative relations with socio-economic development indicators. Thirdly, we examine the spatial equilibrium of vocational schools and the allocation of vocational education resources by industries. Finally, we put forward the corresponding policy options for China's vocational education resources allocation. The result show that the middle and higher vocational education resources at different spatial scales concentrate to the east of the Huhuanyong Line and scatter to the west of the line. In terms of the influencing factors, the number of people under the age of 15 has a significant positive role in promoting the number of middle vocational schools, and the numbers of secondary and tertiary industries has a positive impact on the number of higher vocational schools. The research results also present that the middle vocational education resources are widely distributed, and relatively unbalanced in the west. On the contrary, the higher vocational education resources are relatively unbalanced in the east, and the difference in higher vocational education resources is dominated by variations within cities. Accordingly, we suggest that the allocation of higher and middle vocational education resources should be optimized according to local and surrounding economic development, industry and labor demand. Specifically, the eastern region requires a more reasonable allocation of higher vocational education resources, and the western region should strengthen the construction of middle vocational education resources. Moreover, the connection and coordination of middle vocational education resources between the east and the west should be emphasized as well. In addition, by relying on the cities with premium higher vocational educational resources, the development of middle vocational schools in their surrounding counties can be promoted, especially for the schools setting up the related majors. These policy options put forward by this research can shed light on enhancing the social recognition of vocational schools, and eventually boost rural revitalization and new urbanization development in China.

"Common prosperity" has become a matter of concern in China's society. The outline of China's long-term goals for 2035 calls for substantial progress in common prosperity. Therefore, measuring income and net wealth inequality, and identifying the differences and causes in regional common prosperity are of great significance in China. Based on the data of Chinese Household Financial Survey (CHFS) from 2011 to 2019, this paper uses Gini coefficient, Lorentz curve and panel data econometric model to analyze the evolution patterns and causes of regional income and net wealth inequality, and find out differences in the way of promoting common prosperity among regions. The results are shown as follows: (1) Although the national income inequality considerably declined from 2011 to 2019 but net wealth inequality remained large. There are obvious spatial differences in the changes of income and net wealth inequality, and the cumulative shares of each income or wealth quantile from 2011 to 2019 show different changing trends. (2) There is an approximate inverted "U" relationship between economic development and income inequality in provincial-level regions (hereafter province) of China, and an approximate inverted "N" relationship between economic development and net wealth inequality. (3) The processes of common prosperity are different among different regions. Specifically, there has been a general increase in households net wealth in developed provinces and these provinces have been promoting common prosperity, but the trend is not obvious in developing provinces. This study provides a reference for the formulation of policy on common prosperity of the central and local governments. In order to promote common prosperity in China, governments at all levels should provide assistance to vulnerable groups, scientifically and rationally make use of and manage natural resources, increase investment in transportation infrastructure construction, encourage capital investment to promote capital accumulation, and increase public finance expenditure on scientific and technological innovation.

In the current era of the knowledge economy, geography and international migration studies are paying close attention to intellectual migrants and their decisions. However, there is little geographical exploration of these returnees in the literature. Taking Chinese academic returnees in Guangzhou as a case study, we apply qualitative research methods, in-depth interviews and observations to explore the dynamic process of their return and local embeddedness in their home country from multidimensional perspectives. The findings indicate that: (1) The main streams of the inflow of Chinese academic returnees relate to job opportunities and the comparative advantages of the transnational capital, family relations and cultural belonging. (2) After their returns, they have to face the problem of how to re-embed into work, personal life and social networks, and so on. The process and result of re-embeddedness is influenced by institutional structural factors such as work and work environments, and non-institutional factors such as daily practices. (3) Academic returnees have a relatively strong sense of subjective agency during the process of their local embeddedness due to their relatively high cross-border intellectual capital and social networks. Against the background of transnational mobility, the identification of academic returnees manifests as the character of trans-local subjectivity, and their construction of 'home' changes over time and varies by scale. We assert that a multi-place social embeddedness through trans-local social networks endows academic returnees with a sense of belonging that does not necessarily attach to geographical space with a fixed physical boundary. To some extent, this indicates the downplay of 'place' as defined by geographical location. The implication is that we may focus more on social networks and everyday life practices of academic returnees in order to better understand the returnees' behaviors. A detailed exploration of the process and results of academic returnees' local embeddedness from the microscopic and subjective perspectives can further help us understand and enrich the migration theory and research framework during the period of transition, and also provide guidance and suggestions for China's talent policy and development strategy.

This paper aims to reveal the net effect and its dynamic changes of the Internet on intra-urban employment distribution. Firstly, we incorporate the relative changes of the Internet's dispersion and agglomeration force into the analytical framework of the dynamic impact of the Internet on intra-urban employment distribution, and propose corresponding theoretical hypothesis. Secondly, we use the micro-data of 22.47 million enterprises in 289 prefecture-level cities in China's Economic Census in 2004, 2008 and 2013, and take postal districts as the basic spatial unit to construct the employment agglomeration index. To alleviate endogeneity, we construct instrumental variables with the "8-horizontal and 8-longitudinal" optical cable trunk network and the functional form of the exogenous logistic curve, and re-estimate the results. The results show that, on average, the Internet can significantly promote intra-urban employment agglomeration, but with the increase of Internet penetration rate, its promotion effect is characterized as "marginal diminishing", while the spatial multi-centricity of urban employment continues to increase. For cities with a high economic development level, the increase in Internet penetration rate promotes temporary dispersion of intra-urban employment and then "marginal increasing" agglomeration. Thus, this paper concludes that along with the continuous penetration of the Internet and the development of cities, the increase of the agglomeration force of the Internet will exceed the increase of the dispersion force, thereby reinforcing the city's strengths as a center of production and exchange to be a facilitator of urban employment agglomeration, while driving the evolution of urban employment towards a polycentric structure. This paper contributes to the existing literature by revealing, for the first time, the changing characteristics of the Internet's impact on the spatial structure of urban employment with the continuous penetration of the Internet, as well as the heterogeneity of its manifestations in cities at different levels of development, and offers a new explanation for the inability of existing studies to reach consistent conclusions on the diversified impact of the Internet with a rigorous analytical paradigm and a dynamic perspective. The findings of this paper are of great significance for predicting the spatial distribution of economic activities in future cities and guiding spatial planning.

Drug dealing is closely related with economic benefits, which brings great damage to the society. Many strict measures have been taken to crack down drug-related crimes in China, but there is a lack of research on the spatial displacement and influencing factors' changes of drug dealing after crackdown. Based on the routine activity theory, crime pattern theory and social disorganization theory, this study built negative binomial regression models before and after the "Thunder Anti-drug" operation respectively, and analyzed how the impacts of semi-public, outdoor and private spaces on drug dealing had changed in the microcosmic scale. The findings are as follows: (1) Drug dealing crimes dropped significantly immediately after the operation. (2) The impact of the semi-public space, such as hotels, stores, supermarkets and entertainment places, on drug dealing crimes decreased after the crackdown. (3) The impact of outdoor public space, such as main roads, branch lines, bus-stops and parks, on drug dealing crime strengthened after the intensified crackdown. Private space such as residential areas had significant positive influence on drug dealing crimes, and the impact strengthened after the crackdown. The results show that drug dealing crimes moved to outdoor public space and private space from semi-public space. The "Thunder Anti-drug" operation was effective to crackdown top drug traffickers and drug dealing gangs, which led to a massive decline in drug dealing crimes in 2014. The follow-up operations further improved the ability for investigating hidden drug crimes. The results show that law enforcement department must carry out sustained and targeted operations on drug related crimes, to ensure continuous effect.

It is of great significance to identify and analyze the spatial form of urban polycentric structures for the optimization of urban spatial structure. In this paper, the measurement methods of the comprehensive strength parameters and the distance parameters of the gravity model in multi-centers are optimized. Firstly, the accessibility of the spatial syntax which can reflect the perceptions of the residents on spatial structures is combined with the spatial distribution of the population, economic and social activities to build an evaluation system and quantitatively calculate the comprehensive strength of the multi-centers. Then, the word vector correlations, which can express the spatial characteristics and preference rules of the travel trajectory of the residents, are introduced into the gravity model as a distance parameter. Finally, the gravity strength is calculated and the influence sphere is divided to analyze and evaluate the realistic evolution state of the multi-center development goals. Furthermore, comparative experiments revealed that there are some differences in the influence sphere between the optimized gravity model and the traditional gravity model. Verified by spatial statistics and field investigation, the modified model optimizes the use of multi-source data and considers more comprehensive factors, thus providing more accurate spatial morphology analysis results. Findings revealed that there are differences between the spheres of influence of the identified and planned multi-centers, and their spheres of influence in the core urban area of Zhengzhou are very similar. And these centers are multi-centers previously formed through planning or natural evolution. Additionally, the location and spatial form of some peripheral identified multi-centers differ significantly from those of the planned centers. These multi-centers have not been built yet. Hence, they do not satisfy the needs of dispersing and relieving urban pressure.

Characteristic model could help to break through some development difficulties for small towns. This paper attempted to construct a "three-step characteristics positioning method" based on the logical framework of "identifying characteristics-evaluating superiority-positioning characteristics" from microcosmic to macrocosmic view. First, characteristics identification mainly uses manual inspection and big data. Second, superiority evaluation needs different indicators or methods according to corresponding element category, through parallel comparison within the city. Third, characteristics positioning is based on the analysis of territorial types combined with the priority sequence selection from "natural element-cultural element-location element-industrial element". In addition, case studies of 15 characteristic small towns in Anhui Province were adopted to test the operability and practical value of the "three-step characteristics positioning method". Results showed that 20% of the cases failed to identify local characteristics reasonably due to the lack of positioning method and technical specification. Characteristic towns are suggested to verify the elements in time, and other towns should carry out characteristic-oriented positioning work before construction.