Regionalization in China: retrospect and prospect
中国区划工作的回顾与展望

Based upon a review on foreign regionalization work, this paper summarized the characteristics of the regionalization work in different stages, gave a brief introduction to the methodology in the regionalization of China, and discussed some issues on the regionalization work. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the regionalization in China has entered a stage of systematic research and all-around development. The main characteristics of the regionalization work in this stage are as follows. First, the various regionalization schemes are based on their historical background respectively. They are the scientific work closely related to the economic development and social demands at the time. Roughly speaking, research on the regionalization in China had mainly served agricultural production since the 1950s. Since the 1980s, the research had been concentrated on economic development. Since the 1990s, the regionalization work has been focused on sustainable development. Second, the work was mostly static and was not able to reflect the dynamics of the changing natural and social factors. And several important boundaries were identified with some assumption and presumption. In recent years, some trends of overemphasizing models and quantification have appeared in regionalization studies. Third, the regionalization studies were inclined to physical geography. The economic geographical regionalization studies were relatively weak. Moreover, current physical and economic regionalization studies are not well related, which has become a limitation to the research of regional sustainable development. Fourth, current regionalization studies focus on terrestrial system, and haven't paid enough attention to marine system. Fifth, the confirmation of regionalization schemes is not institutionally assured yet. So the research results have not been well absorbed by the economic planning of local governments, and the purpose of serving the sustainable socio-economic development has not been realized. Finally, the necessity and importance of carrying out comprehensive regionalization in China was analyzed, and some key scientific issues related with the comprehensive regionalization of China were discussed. The paper pointed out that as a new growing point of regionalization researches, comprehensive regionalization with an integration of natural and social factors will be an important contribution of the human-earthsystem research to the sustainable development.