This paper tries to analyze the vast demands for knowledge of human geography from national socio-economic development and environmental management in China in the new century. It reveals that such demands have been driving the quick development of human geography in China, not only in traditional areas, but also in such new areas as regional responses to global change, regional and urban sustainable development, and the spatial restructuring enabled by economic globalization and progress in information and communication technologies. It also argues that the disciplinary nature of human geography calls for further acquiring of fundamental knowledge in both natural and social sciences by human geographers. Finally, it suggests that human geographers carry forward their advantage of possessing a comprehensive knowledge structure, base their researches on the territorial system of human-nature and regional and urban sustainable development, and make more use of database, modeling and other new technical approaches.
This paper reviews the recent development of human geography supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China. It reveals four main features of the development: (1) domination by economic geography; (2) a rapid development of urban geography; (3) enriched research topics of regional geography; and (4) increasing attention drawn upon other human factors. Besides, more and more research projects borrow technical methods from natural sciences, and make use of spatial analysis tools and modeling techniques. The last decade has witnessed a sustained increase in the number of human geography projects granted in free application. The topics and research issues of these projects have been getting more and more enriched, and have also paid more attention to the hot research issues studied by international peers.
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.
Based on the systemic summary of the progress of studies on man-land relationship in China since 1990, including its theories, methods and applications, a series of problems that should be urgently resolved in the study are put forward. And some important study orientations are viewed. Studies show that man-land areal system has always been regarded as the core of geographical study by geographers in China. Man-land relationship has been studied from various viewpoints. The basic characteristic, the embranchment and the evolvement trends of man-land system have all been discussed in detail. First, man-land relationship theories of new type have come into being, including man-land system optimization theory, man-land system coupling theory, man-land system dissimilation theory, man-land system dialectic theory, man-land system conflict theory, man-land system crisis theory, man-land system confusion theory, the Man-Earth Synergetics, man-land system intergrowth theory, huge system of universe-earth-human theory, and so on. And the theoretic system has also come into being step by step. Secondly, the methodological studies on man-land system are multiple. Qualitative and quantitative methods, mathematic simulation methods, 3S methods, and comprehensive integration methods are all used. Finally, the applications of man-land system theories are very successful. Regional sustainable development of different spatial and temporal scales has been studied. Although the recent progress of studies on man-land relationship in China is obvious, some problems still exist. For example, the research outlay and institutions are very short, the theoretic studies are not mature, the applications are not well popularized, and the geographers have little service consciousness. So in the future, the following important study orientations are viewed: (1) scientific development viewpoint should be followed and man-land relationship theories should be improved; (2) regional sustainable development and circle economy should be further studied; (3) global problems, global change and the corresponding regional response should be further studied; (4) comprehensive studies should be emphasized; (5) the mechanism, process, pattern and rhythm of controlling the man-land system should be further studied; and (6) environmental and ecological ethic should be further studied.
Comprehensiveness characterizes the most difficult problem of geographical science. Research on some crucial physical geographical processes like global climate change has laid more and more stress on the driving mechanism of human activity, and the research of important human and economic geographic activities on its interrelations with resources and environment. These can be seen as symbols of the growing importance of comprehensiveness in geographical research. Regional development is an important aspect of geographical comprehensiveness research while land use change research and comprehensive spatial division are still the core carriers of comprehensive integration. Both the further development of basic theories of human and economic geographies like location theory and spatial structure theory and ceaseless practice of main applied aspects like regional policy and spatial planning are propelling the conversion of geographical research method from a "composite-intersection" one to a comprehensive one. Using integrated method and based on the research project "Geographical foundation for the formation of China's regional development framework", this paper tries to set up a research frame, which is aimed at unveiling the comprehensively effecting mechanism of the factors for the formation of China's regional development framework and their time-space law.
Land is the basic natural resource sustaining regional economic development, mantaining adequate cropland area is the foundation of human subsistence and development. Land Use and Land Cover Change (LUCC) is affected not only by physical factors, but also by human factors, so LUCC is a geographical element expressing the relationship between human being and nature, and it has become the research hotspot of not only physical geography but also human geography. The research results of the change in cropland area in the Yangtze River Delta during the past 50 years show that, policy, economic development and population growth are the main driving forces for the decrease in cropland area; there are remarkable exponential correlations between the decrease in cropland area and the increase in per capita gross domestic product (GDP). While GDP per capita is below 12,000 RMB yuan, the economic growth has a great pressure on cropland area; while GDP per capita exceeds 30,000 RMB yuan, the pressure of economic growth on cropland will gradually mitigate. At present, the Yangtze River Delta is experiencing the period of the rapid decrease in cropland area caused by the economic development, although the decreasing rate is obviously below that of before 1998. It is estimated that the pressure of economic development on cropland area will gradually mitigate after the year 2010.
Industrial cluster has become the hot topic in Chinese regional studies and the new idea of the government officials in regional and sectorial development. However, confusions in the cluster related concepts greatly hamper the Chinese cluster development. This paper aims at the frequently asked questions in the website of Chinese cluster studies and discusses some concepts related to local industrial clusters in Chinese context, such as agglomeration, geographical concentration, innovative cluster, industrial chain and industrial park.
As the scientific groundwork for the spatial sustainable development planning and management, spatial development function regionalization can provide regional division of different development directions and potentials based on the regional disparities of the natural, social, economic and environmental characteristics. After looking back and comparing the theory, principle, index, method and function area among natural regionalization, agricultural regionalization, ecological regionalization and economic regionalization, etc., this paper puts forward the concept and characteristics of the spatial development function regionalization by equilibrium between natural and economic systems, integration of spatial development and spatial governess, harmony of population, economic resource and environment. Then, it focuses the discussion on the regionalization methods, types, and indices. Using the method of classification matrix integrated by the economic development value and ecological conservation value, several functional regional types, namely feasible development area, limitary development area, moderate conservation area, prohibited exploiting area and elasticity gray area, can be divided and marked out according to the various combinations of the economic development value and ecological conservation value. Furthermore, the paper probes the evaluation indices system as well as applies the evaluation methods along with classification clustering and matrix both to the economic development value and ecological conservation value of each regional unit. Finally, the paper takes waterfront along the Yangtze River in Nantong city, Jiangsu Province as a case study for the development function regionalization of waterfront. The economic development value of waterfront (i.e. the harbor construction value) has been evaluated by the indices of waterfront depth, stability, river breadth before waterfront and land width behind waterfront and then three value levels have been divided. Meanwhile the ecological protection value can be appraised by judging that whether the region cell has domestic water source, ecological isolated area, tourism area, historic relics or the possibility of frequent occurrence of geological hazards and then three value levels have also been divided. By the classification matrix of the economic development value and the ecological conservation value of 14 appraising units, these units are separated into five development function types or waterfront can be divided into feasible development waterfront, limitary development waterfront, moderate conservation waterfront, prohibited development waterfront and gray elasticity waterfront. According to the classification result, some valuable advices about waterfront development and adjustment can be provided.
Under the background of economic globalization and technological revolution, industrial cluster has become a new successful model for regional economic development as a space framework of economic activity. First, this paper reviews the basic connotation and type of industrial cluster, and then expatiates the internal mechanism of the cluster from five aspects, such as level efficiency, uprightness efficiency, internal system environment, external relationship, right framework coming from equality and dependence. At the same time, the authors make a systematic research and analysis by integrating investigation data of Pudong IC industrial cluster. This paper considers that Pudong IC industrial cluster is the outcome of the industrial transfer from the multinational companies, and it is one of the largest IT-clusters in China. So at the very start, the IC industrial cluster has joined the global network. The multinational companies exert important influence on IC cluster development, but at the same time MNCs control the upgrading of the IC cluster, and impact passively the local innovations in the IC cluster. The paper points out that the IC cluster develops rapid, and has extensive external relationships. But the level relationship in the IC cluster is weak because of lack of good institutional environment. Finally, this paper concludes that only by reinforcing the local network relationships, arousing the desire for gain new knowledge collectively, paying attention to external relationships, grasping the initiatives in industrial development, and building a good institutional environment, can the IT cluster in Pudong develop well and fast in the future.
Recent decades have witnessed extraordinary advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs), which have helped to change social and economic life. Such changes have drawn much attention from scholars in various academic fields, and have initiated fervent debates on the spatial implications of new ICTs. Geographers have been prominent, particularly in contesting the popular view that distance no longer matters and that "the end of geography" is at hand. With these debates, urban and regional development under new ICTs has become a hot issue in geographical studies. This paper, mainly based on literature in English journals, tries to review and summarize the studies on spatial impacts of new ICTs at three levels, i.e. regional restructuring, urban restructuring and firm-level restructuring. Existing literature reveals that new ICTs have played an increasingly important role in the spatial transformations of the economy in the last several decades, but they are "an enabling or facilitating agent". Since there exists a gap between the introduction of new ICTs and changes in the spatial pattern of firms, empirical evidence is still insufficient for drawing firms on new ICT impacts. Overally, the spatial transformations at firm level have not yet been given enough attention by geographers.
The preliminary analysis on the recent achievement of the western urban geographic research reveals three main aspects of recent changes. Firstly, an obvious former social theory trend has been strengthened. Secondly, the philosophical underpinnings and methodologies of this discipline are becoming pluralistic. And thirdly, both the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis based on calculation and modeling have made great progress. The emergence of all these changes in the Western urban geography due to the effects of several background facts, such as global trends including globalization, information technology and ecological conception, the rapid economic development based on knowledge and the social transition of the Western countries, and the new characteristics of the urban development and the current philosophical and cultural thoughts in the West.
City competitiveness largely hinges on urban efficiency that is reflected in labor markets, land markets, capital markets, and provision of urban infrastructure. This paper illustrates the impacts of urban spatial structure on the efficiency of labor, capital, and land markets as well as on urban infrastructure and public financing. It indicates that urban planning can change or determine urban spatial structure in a way that promotes urban competitiveness and sustainable urban development.
Globalization has recently become one of the popular issues influencing spatial studies, and it even becomes an approach of urban-regional study being discussed in the new era. Indeed, after the 1990s follow the change of the economic structure of capitalism and the development of the maladjustment of the supply and demand of the global market and the centralization of economy, the money market, service business, and the equipment of communication. This makes the phenomenon of globalization reflect the "global" city levels of spatial articulation. This paper tries to explore new issues and hypotheses in the research of city and region in China via a view of globalization. By both historical review on China urban and regional researches, and tendency of new researches in the world, this paper suggests that it is concerned new frontier literatures in China city and region on globalization aspects, including: (1) world city; (2) urbanization; (3) the formation of urban-region; (4) the link of trans-state; (5) the city of internal transformation; (6) regional unbalance; and (7) social polarization.
Since reform and opening up, co-driven by foreign direct investment (FDI), the dispersion of large cities and rural industrialization (the development of TVEs) and constrained by the rural-urban dichotomy of management system, a new kind of transitional regions has emerged in some post-rural areas with good location or development basis, such as the Yangze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, which is characterized by mixed rural and urban land uses, rapid change of social and economic structure and thus can be named as "peri-urbanization region". Based on the extensive review on the progress of concerned researches, 5 theoretical concepts of urban fringe, edge city, extended metropolitan region (EMR), Desakota and rural-urban integration are found to have important references and differences to the peri-urbanization regions in China. Further, this paper highlights the significance and also purposes the major research issues for conducting peri-urbanization studies in China.
Northeast China is a typical old industrial area with high urbanization level in China. There are 90 cities in 2000, and urbanization level is 46.55%, which is around 10 percent higher than the average level of the whole country. However, since 1978, the area has experienced a tough reconstruction process. Regional development lagged behind in respect to southeast coastal area, and the rate of urbanization slowed down, urbanization quality was low. Due to the decline of traditional industries, regional urbanization was encountered with all problems such as state owned enterprises reform, unemployment and laid-off workers, transformation of the resources-exhausted cities, and eco-environmental quality degradation etc., hence to quicken the pace of urbanization and improve urbanization quality becomes a key way in revitalizing the old industrial base. According to the current situation, regional urbanization tendency, characteristics of the declining area, and related urban regeneration theories, the authors put forward a new urbanization strategy for the old industrial base. The overall object is to reconstruct Northeast China into a modern settlement system with prosperous economy, advanced cultural society, beautiful physical environment, clear urban function, reasonable distribution and coordinating structure of different sized cities. The general layout is to establish 4 megalopolises centered by Dalian, Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin, which have the potential to form a huge megalopolis along the key traffic axis from Harbin to Dalian. There are 6 key aspects for carrying out the new urbanization strategy, which are transforming economic structure of the resources exploiting city, regenerating the old industrial zone inside big city, improving industrial agglomeration and reorganizing industries among the megalopolises, rural urbanization, accelerating urban informationization, renovating urban environment and renewing urban ecology. The authors give an in-depth analysis on the existing problems in relation to the above aspects and bring forward main countermeasures.
This paper analyses the powerful integration relation phenomenon between Changchun and Jilin in recent years. At the same time, integrating theory with practice, the paper summarizes the evolution course and general model of integration development relation of cities group. The paper indicates it is the best option to consider long-term strategy of cities group holistically, organize its division of labor in region rationally and pursue double win and common development. Three kinds of relations are embodied for cities group integration, and they are type, model and spatial relation. Simultaneity, every kind is classified and expatiated. The paper probes into economy relation, foundation facilities relation, ecosystem environment relation and compound one for type relation of cities group integration. When referring to model relation of cities group integration, this paper generalizes three kinds for it, which include the model of complementary between elements and industry, the model of the urban function substituted and integrative development. Also, we find the spatial relation of integration development of cities group can be plotted out as the following subsections: node-district space, corridor space, cyberspace and the extended space of integration. We talk about three mechanisms apropos of the adjustment of integration development of cities group. The first one is the mechanism of the administration coordination carried out generally through the government of higher level, institution striding district and relevant urban government. The second kind is the mechanism of consultation, which means establishing integration nexus by participating independently, consulting collectively, compromising appropriately and promise together, and the last kind is the mechanism of market coordination. On the basis of the situation of China and the present condition and trend of urban integration development, these three kinds of coordination mechanisms must exist synchronously and function together. But the function and position of various kinds of mechanisms is dissimilar during different periods. In earlier and initial stage of integration development, with the assistant of consultation mechanism, administration mechanism is given priority to; it is still the administration mechanism that is in highest fight, and the market mechanisms complement it in middle period; and administration mechanism and market mechanism are laid equal stress on during later stage. And lastly, we consider the government should play the role of guiding and adviser one, cultivate the market mechanism actively, make relevant policies and regulations for the trans-regional following of production factors, and remove various kinds of obstacles between cities. After the urban integration enters a new stage of development, the function of the higher government of a city will fade out gradually, while the service function of the urban government will be stressed further, which serves as an important service, bridge and guidance function for urban integration development.
On talking about the connotation of the frontier field in the urban social living space, which is formed in the social-cultural exchange in geography, firstly, this article emphasized the social spatial sequence in the urban living places, which is also called the micro-location ideas in the social living places. Secondly, the authors attentively studied the contents and researching fields of the micro-location in urban social living space. Thirdly, the authors discussed the present research status and tendency, according to existing literature at home and abroad.
Tourism geography has been developing rapidly since 1978. However, there still exist problems such as insufficient studies in theory and methodology, narrow range in research, too much repeated work, and slow progress in research in general. This paper reflects on several issues in tourism geography in the last 25 years of development. 1) The relationship between academic research and its application. In the last two decades, tourism geography has mainly been serving an economic purpose. This paper argues that the practical value of tourism geography has been very much exaggerated; this has in turn played a negative part in stopping academic research from in-depth and extensive development. The development of tourism geography should not only serve economic purpose but also social and cultural purposes. 2) Research notion and objectives. Tourism geography in China needs to set up new notion in order for researchers to understand their mission. Contribution to the field lies on retrospection, self-doubt, critical and creative thinking. 3) Research method and findings. Empirical research has been the frequent practice in the field in the last 25 years. However, mathematical and quantitative research is not the only solution. Low level empirical studies can sometimes lead to a waste of time and energy on the researcher's part. The evaluation of research findings should be based on their contribution, the difference they make in relation to similar findings at home and abroad, etc. Attention should also be paid to the verification of the findings and the respect for intellectual property. 4) Crises and challenge. It is not appropriate to confuse the academic contribution of tourism geographers with their work in planning practice, because this tends to let their "social contribution" overwhelm or overtake their academic contribution. In turn, this would have a negative impact on their time management in research and practice, which may lead to crises in the field.
This paper analyzed the current situation and potential of China's tourism. It indicated that in China the tourism geography superiority and the challenge coexist. Firstly, it discussed the China tourism geography's contribution to tourism as well as China's traveling education. Although China's tourism geography has made contribution to tourism development, it tends to be weakened due to the new curriculums arrangement for tourism education. Then this paper proposed that tourism should provide a stage for the achievement of geographical theories and practice so that it can effectively contribute to China's economic development. Emphasis of tourism geography ought to be placed on geography of tourism-related industries. The landscape industry is tourism's core product, thus efforts must be made to concentrate researches on landscape industry, innovative mechanism and model of tourism planning.
In the development of city tourism, as the "signboard" and "name card" of a city, the city image is one of the most important parts of a city, and also is the vital factor influencing the landscape planning and designing of a city or a region and the city tourism. This paper, taking Shaoxing, a city with navigable waterways crisscrossing the urban area in Zhejiang Province as an example, explores the landscape planning and designing and the watercity tourism image construction based on the basic characteristics of the city such as rivers and lakes, waterways, bridges, dark-awninged boats, architecture, and other relavant features of peculiar human and culture landscapes.
Under the logic of the institutional, cultural, relational, and scalar turns, geographers' contribution to recent developments of Western economic geographies was reviewed. This is balanced by an equal examination on "new economic geography" defined by the mainstream economists in Western countries. The paper holds a view that the two schools, multiple turns and economist's new economic geography, should gain mutual benefits from close dialogues and idea exchanges. In a developing country such as China, the development of economic geography should differ from Western world, due to its different economic development path as well as different background for the academic discipline of economic geography. This does not prevent China's geographers from learning from their counterparts in Western countries. Obviously, it is suggested that China's geographers should enhance identifying and focusing on theoretical problems in research, introducing theories from the relevant disciplines, utilizing mathematics and modeling techniques, and studying in micro scales and micro perspectives. More importantly, the special even unique characteristics in background of Chinese economic geography provide geographers with valuable opportunities. (1) As a fast growth country with great regional disparity, China is confronting a challenge in the balance between economic development and problems in resource exploitation and environment degradation. (2) Geography in China has been strongly biased to natural sciences and economic geographers have been trained with rich knowledge in physical geography, geology, environment science, and biology. (3) The traditional culture particularly Confucius philosophy that emphasizes harmony in personal relation of society and in human-land relation, continuously influences geographers' thinking in research. Under this background, geographers may find many interesting topics that have potentials in producing internationally recognized outcomes. Among them, four appear particularly significant: (1) theoretical construction in spatial structure of economic development, including the issues on uneven regional development, and evolution of fast growth poles or areas; (2) relationship between regional culture and economic development, particularly local cluster and culture under fast rural industrialization in some provinces; (3) relationship between urbanization and industrialization, such as the lag of urbanization as compared with international general situation; and (4) balance of economic development with population growth, resource utilization and environmental protection.
Cultural geography is an essential part of human geography. Its introduction to mainland China has fostered it embedded in Chinese geographic academy since the mid 1980s. It would be of benefit to Chinese cultural geographic study by borrowing the development experience of foreign cultural geography prudently. This article aims to give a brief introduction to New Cultural Geography which emerged in the two countries. The author took the Cultural Studies as its background. This paper presents two features in Anglo-American New Cultural Geography. The first is its new angle of view for human landscape study. New Cultural Geography has been trying to relate human landscapes to their evolution rather than emphasizing their morphology. It pays more attention to the symbolic meanings of human landscape and what made human landscape to be a reading text. Comparing with the traditional cultural geography, New Cultural Geography put more emphasis on the human landscapes in metropolitan area than rural area, the latter was the area to be concerned more by Suaurians. New Cultural Geography has a strong trend of cultural politics while it looks at human landscapes. The second distinct feature of New Cultural Geography is the spatiality of culture and the locality of culture. It takes culture as a media of spatial process. New Cultural Geography stresses that culture was infiltrated in all the processes of human life and guides our practice in the living spaces. So that New Cultural Geography implies culture is composed by places. Finally, the author would like to launch an associative discussion of the following topic. Cultural geography performances like a school of human geography rather than a branch of human geography, for it takes cultural theories as its analysis tools to study the spatiality of all human phenomena.
The geographical studies on consumer behavior in Japan began in the 1970s, prospered during the 1980s and turned to the period of decline after 1990. They were greatly influenced by the behaviorism originating in America and Europe. This article tries to summarize the characteristics of the progress of Japanese consumer behavior studies since the 1970s, from various viewpoints such as spatial choice models, multi-place and multipurpose trips, time geographical approach, commercial spatial structure and consumers' attributes. Consumer behavior studies in Japan followed the trends of behavioral geography and humanistic geography after the World War II, and the focus had shifted from normative studies such as those on quantitative models and commercial central place to behavioral study. The studies emphasizing individual differences, relating to other behaviors and concerning with social relevance were taking the place of positivism research and came to be the mainstream. The characteristics of consumer behavior studies in Japan can be summarized as follows: (1) paid more attention to residents rather than consumers; (2) made full use of the ever-increasing formal commercial surveys and consumer behavior surveys; (3) distinguished themselves in micro-level empirical study; (4) had obvious development in qualitative studies; (5) began to apply GIS to the consumer behavior studies; (6) lacked social relevance and had few planning and policy oriented studies, but (7) the application oriented studies had been becoming a new trend in response to the ever-increasing intensification of the competition between colleges since the 1990s.
This paper systematically reviews the process of agricultural development and the progress in agricultural geography in China over the last several decades, especially since the implementation of China's reform and opening up policy. It also summarizes the contributions made by agricultural geographers to the country's economic development. The strengths of agricultural geography, namely, its consideration of regional differences and simultaneous integration of all related factors, are fully taken advantage of. However, these strengths have become weakened to some extent in recent years. During this period, both the number of agricultural geographers and the number of key projects awarded to them have dropped. After China joined the WTO, significant changes would have to take place in agricultural sector through restructuring. In light of many problems facing the country's agriculture during this transitional period, agricultural geography that needs to be strengthened should include the following research areas: (1) study of the strategies for agricultural development at the macro-level; (2) construction of models for developing competitive industries based on advantageous regional settings, (3) development of a system for agricultural industrialization and its socialization service; (4) zoning of rural economy and sustainable agricultural systems to support regional cooperation; (5) monitoring and evaluation of the overall capability of food production to ensure China's food security; (6) assessment and modeling of regional agricultural eco-environment and eco-agricultural patterns; (7) study of the innovation of agricultural science and technology and demonstrative high-tech agricultural fields; and (8) innovation of theories and methods of agricultural geography. In order to keep up with the pace of the national economic development, agricultural geographers should continue to follow the tenet of geographic research serving the development of agriculture, and solving new problems under new situations to make more contributions to further modernize agriculture and the whole rural sector. Strengthening the research on agricultural geography is necessary for developing agriculture and for the consummation of agricultural geography itself.
Marine economic geography is a rising branch of economic geography. This paper analyzes the background of the development of marine economic geography, and explains its researching objects and section scope. Up till now, scholars from home and abroad have done much research work in such aspects as coastal management, development and distribution of marine industries, marine resources and sustainable development, the economy of coastal cities, marine territorial politics and economics, spatial structure of seashore tourism, multi-subject integration, etc. Based upon which, we come to the conclusion that marine economic geography is a promising subject. Finally, this paper puts forward the main directions in future study as follows: the theories and methods of marine economic geography, the mutual penetration between the relevant economic subjects, the range of the study, two-in-one of the marine and land economy, soft marine science and more penetrated study of the current fields.
Labor as a key production factor has been paid attention to by scholars for a long time. Since the 1990s, as a result of the changes enabled by economic globalization and technological progress, e.g., transformations of production pattern, employment structure, welfare institution and labor-capital relations, labor issues have displayed more significant than ever. Such transformations have made labor studies a key research area in the field of economic geography in the Western countries. In fact, this is just a reflection of the "institutional and cultural turn" in economic geography in recent years as labor issues become a focus of study. Since local labor market is a place where social and institutional activities and regulations interact, its study is a concrete support to the "institutional and cultural turn". This paper firstly summarizes the three main stages in labor studies by economic geographers in the Western countries, and then reviews the main theoretical approaches to labor studies. It finally analyzes and examines the implications for the geographical study of labor issues in China.
Based on the articles published in Acta Geographica Sinica and the 2003 citation report from the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) and 2001 citation index from Chinese Science Citation Database (ISCI) and China Academic Journals (CAJ-CD), this paper tries to examine the features of researches in geographical sciences in China, especially in human geography, and characteristics of the authors for Acta Geographica Sinica. It hopes to provide some reference data on the development of human geography and reveal to a certain degree the research level in geography, especially in human geography. The main findings are that the development of human geography lags behind that of physical geography in terms of research scope, methodologies etc.
