Study population agglomeration patterns for the urban-rural geomorphology of Taiwan

Abstract

The population distribution pattern is regarded as critical evidence to study the urban-rural geomorphology While the scopes of urban planning should follow the patterns; however Taiwan typically depends on the administrative boundaries and is regardless of their abstract and arbitrary spatial representation To be precise administrative areas were demarcated for the purpose of distributing national resources equitably leading to the inclination to change with policies and making them become inconsistent through time As a consequence they fail to demonstrate reliable and applicable settlements distribution patterns—arises a potential risk of inconsistency to the reality—which is also regarded as one MAUP in the domain of urban planning indicating continuous geomorphology being distorted by artificially modifiable spatial units The research attempt to reveal this disparity through observing population agglomeration patterns of two population demarcations the administrative areas and the statistical units The latter one was featured with the prominent characteristics of homogenization fineness and temporal stability thus relatively fit well with the real population distribution We regard cities as the most densely populous areas and should exist in clusters therefore the research methods apply statistical profiling spatial interpolation and spatial autocorrelation to obtain the patterns of population clusters Next we interpret the results into the urban-rural classification corresponding to empirical knowledge Lastly we propose an advised urban-rural classification and differentiate between two demarcations and approaches The main contributions include a recommended urban-rural classification based on the combination of statistical profiling and spatial autocorrelation which is divided into five categories: downtown city town village and countryside belonging to the urban suburban and rural areas First it is of interest that the advised patterns are substantially consistent with the statistical profiling; however it remains a dissimilarity in the population size Second it is of certain that a more cogent pattern can we obtain from the statistical units and we again confirm that a more average population delineation in the administrative areas Third the result claims that the Pareto exponent in Taiwan’s city-size distribution is not equal to 1 and demonstrates a phenomenon of urban primacy that the largest cities are overwhelming the secondary cities by around triple times To conclude the research provides new insight into the acknowledgment of Taiwan’s urban-rural patterns

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Han-Liang Lin (Supervisor)