On the laws of territorial differentiation of socio-economic development in western China
中国西部经济社会地域分异规律研究

By integrating quantitative with qualitative approaches, as well as GIS technology along with 12 major selected indicators which can well reflect the regional development of western China, this article makes a comprehensive assessment on the socio-economic development of the 106 cities at prefectural level. Also, the characteristics and the laws of socio-economic disparities in western China are probed. Factors that mainly influence the socio-economic territorial differentiations are identified as follows: (1) physical disparities essentially influence the socio-economic disparities; (2) regional integration of agricultural resources shapes the territorial differentiation of agriculture in western China; (3) regional combination of energy and mineral resources constitutes the key factors determining the mineral cities' formation and distribution; (4) large cities and developed regions are located along major rivers and traffic lines, taking on point-axis diffusion form; (5) the interactions of location, resources, labour forces, technology, market, and policy determine the properties and patterns of economic regions;and (6) the high correlativity between each indicator selected in this article results in the strong conflicts between socio-economic development and ecological environment, which constitutes the main constraints to the development of western China. In conclusion, the laws of the socio-economic territorial differentiation of western China reflects the immense physical restrictions to the socio-economic development, which requires reconsideration of the ecological carrying capacity and resources' restriction in the course of developing western China. Moreover, blind migration into western China and reclamation should by no means be advocated