Comparison about the Spatial Distribution and Influencing Factors of Rural Settlements and Traditional Villages in the Yellow River Beach Area

The Yellow River beach area is the floodplain formed by rolling siltation of the riverbed between the Yellow River levees. Historically, affected by the threat of flood inundation in flood season and other factors, the infrastructure of beach area is relatively weak, and the economic and social development is relatively backward. Because of its important ecological and regional status, it has attracted widespread attention from the Chinese government and academic circles in recent years, including but not limited to two important national strategies, Rural Revitalization, and Ecological Protection& High-quality Development of the Yellow River Basin. There are a large number of residential areas in the Yellow River beach area, including dense rural settlements, and traditional villages with rich cultural and natural resources, making them a space carrier of a social-ecological complex system. The spatial differentiation between rural settlements and traditional villages in the beach area can reflect the distribution of culture, nature, economy and other resources in the beach area. How to grasp and understand the spatial differentiation laws of different types of villages and their influencing factors, and then propose sustainable goals and strategies for the development of villages in beach areas, is an important topic in current research. However, there are few studies on rural settlements or traditional villages within the beach area. This study uses the method of geo-spatial analysis to describe the geo-spatial patterns similarities and differences between rural settlements and traditional villages within the beach area through three indicators: geo-spatial distribution characteristics, geo-spatial distribution patterns and geo-spatial distribution balance. With the aid of Geo Detector tool, the influence degree and interaction mechanism of the elements contained in the natural geographical environment and socio-economic environment are analyzed, and then the formation and development mechanism and development direction of different types of villages in the Yellow River beach area are discussed. This study has the following conclusions: 1. The rural settlements and traditional villages in the beach area are generally distributed in agglomeration, but there are differences between provinces; 2. There are three concentrated distribution areas of rural settlements, while two centralized distribution areas, one main and one time, of traditional villages, but the two types of centralized distribution areas do not overlap in space; 3. Compared with rural settlements, the distribution of traditional villages is more unbalanced between prefectures and cities; 4. Compared with rural settlements, traditional villages are more closely related to the natural geographic environment, even in areas with generally flat terrain such as beach areas, traditional villages are mostly distributed in places with relatively large topographical changes, while the former is more related to economic development and policy intervention. We also pay attention to the impact of historical process, cultural radiation and policy intervention on the spatial differentiation of the two types of villages. At the end of the study, we discuss the development goals of the typified rural space in the Yellow River beach area, in order to provide useful support for the construction of different resilient development strategies for the villages based in the Yellow River beach area.