Simulation of the migration routes of Hakka based on spatial accessibility
基于空间可达性分析的客家民系迁移路径模拟

The Hakka people's migration and the formation of their unique culture cover a large extent of space and time.The temporal,physical and social background had great impact on the migration routes and the distribution of the Hakka settlements,representing the unique man-land relationship. From the perspectives of human geography and anthropogeography,the paper introduces quantitative methods and a GIS platform into the Hakka migration research,which was usually analyzed qualitatively by social scientists.The focus is the accessibility of the major Hakka settlement area——the overlapped region of Jiangxi(Gan),Fujian(Min),and Guangdong(Yue or Canton) provinces,where three cities(Ganzhou,Changting and Meizhou) are considered as the "Capital" of the Hakka people.A GIS database of Hakka migration has been established with landforms and ancient road information.Subsequently,the optimal migration route was analyzed and modeled based on both raster and vector data.The accessibility analysis result corresponds with the actual distribution of Hakka settlements.It is indicated that the landforms including high mountains and narrow paths greatly affected the migration route selection and the final spatial settlements of the Hakka ancestors in the social and cultural settings in an agricultural society with relatively low technological level.The analysis result also explains why the three cities are located on the optimal path of the migration as a good example of the unique man-land relationship mentioned above.In the enclosed mountainous areas,the Han Culture brought by the Hakka ancestors was integrated with the native culture and formed a unique system of Hakka language,culture,customs,and mentality.The formation of this man-land relationship was a long-term and complicated process involved with political and economic factors as well as ethnic fusion,which needs to be further analyzed in the future research.