Definition: It is the product of the third great division of labor in human society, with administrative and commercial activities as its basic functions.

Functional definition: The difference from rural areas lies in the specificity of functions. Cities are places where industrial and commercial activities gather and people live together.

Agglomeration definition: High density of population, buildings, wealth, and information is a common feature of cities

Regional definition: A city is a regional phenomenon that occupies a part of the earth's land and has the functions of controlling, adjusting and servicing its surroundings.

Landscape definition: characterized by man-made landscapes, including diversification of land use, diversification of architecture and diversification of space utilization

System definition: It is a complex and dynamically changing natural-social composite giant system.

A city is a residential area where the non-agricultural population is concentrated and mainly engaged in non-agricultural production activities such as industry and commerce. It is the center of social, economic, and cultural activities within a certain geographical scope. It is a large system that organically combines various departments and elements inside and outside the city.

Concept: It is a combination of a large urban population core and adjacent regions with close socio-economic ties and integration tendencies. It is the basic regional unit for urban statistics and research in the world. It is the key to the development of urbanization to a higher level. The form of urban spatial organization produced during this stage.

The United States was the first to adopt the concept of metropolitan areas

Proposed by French geographer Gottman, he believed that there are 6 metropolitan areas

There are three more that may become metropolitan areas

Based on economic ties, with global cities (or cities with global city functions) as the core, it is a unique spatial phenomenon formed by the expansion and union of global cities and secondary large and medium-sized cities with relatively strong economic strength in their hinterlands. It is a multi-core spatial structure with specialized internal connections that both cooperate and compete with each other.

1. Agglomeration scale

2.Production efficiency

3. Productivity structure

4. Functions

5.Material form

6. Cultural concepts

material connection

economic ties

population movement link

Technical contact

social link

Service contact

Political and administrative organization contacts

Drawing boundaries in a strictly scientific sense is no easy task because

my country’s city and town setting standards

Two basic characteristics of my country’s municipal system

①1949-1978: Industrialization, "dual economy" system, urbanization process is slow, farmers provide agricultural and sideline products without entering the city, providing agricultural surplus products for industrial development.

②After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978: Agricultural support for industry has not changed. Rural areas provide cheap labor, land resources, and direct investment by township and village enterprises to provide impetus for urban industrial development.

③ In recent years: urban and rural coordination and the construction of a new socialist countryside have become the main axis of urban and rural work in the new era. In 2005, agricultural taxes were withdrawn from the historical stage, and the government increased investment in agricultural construction.

Our country is at a historical turning point from the urban-rural dual economic structure to the urban-rural integrated development stage.

The fundamental purpose is to reverse the urban-rural dual structure

1. From a closed single center to an open multi-center space environment

2. From a flat space environment to a three-dimensional space environment

3. From productive urban space to living urban space: livable and high quality

4. From separated homogeneous urban space to continuous diverse urban space

1. Natural environmental factors

2.Social and cultural factors

3. Economic and technical factors

4. Policy and institutional factors

"Visible urbanization": population concentration, changes in spatial form, and changes in economic and social structure

"Invisible urbanization": lifestyle, consciousness, behavioral methods, life attitude

In short, urbanization is a process in which agricultural population is transformed into non-agricultural population, rural area is transformed into urban area, and agricultural activities are transformed into non-agricultural activities. It may also be considered as a process of geographical concentration of non-agricultural population and activities in cities, as well as urban values, The process of diffusion of lifestyles in rural geography.

Urbanization level/urbanization rate: PU (urbanization rate) = U (urban permanent population)/P (total regional population). In addition to quantitative indicators, we also need to look at quality indicators.

1. Agricultural surplus contribution

2. Promotion of industrialization

3. Comparative interests drive: push and pull forces

4. Promote institutional changes

5. Market mechanism orientation

6. The dual role of ecological environment induction and restriction

7. Urban and rural planning and regulation

1. Stage of agglomeration urbanization

2. Suburbanization stage

3. Counter-urbanization stage

4. Re-urbanization stage

①Start-up stage (1949-1957): Industry

② Fluctuating development stage (1958-1965): Violating objective laws and blindly expanding construction, a large number of people poured into the city, and policy adjustments were adopted to mobilize the urban population to return to their hometowns.

③ Stagnation stage (1966-1978): cadres are decentralized to rural areas, urban population declines, and scattered industrial layout makes it difficult to form agglomeration advantages to develop cities and towns.

④Rapid development stage (since 1979): after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

① Urbanization model led by state-owned enterprises under the planned economy system: Panzhihua, Daqing, Anshan, Dongying, Karama

②In the period of commodity shortage, the urbanization model is dominated by the township collective economy.

③In the early stage of market economy, the urbanization model was dominated by decentralized household industries.

④Urbanization model dominated by foreign investment and mixed economy

has entered a stage of sustained, accelerated and healthy development

The transfer process from west to east is generally faster in the east than in the mid-west.

The development of regional central cities and dense urban areas is accelerating

Some cities are gradually becoming internationalized

The eastern coast is faster than the western inland, but the central and western regions will continue to accelerate

The diversified urbanization path with big cities as the main body will become the main choice for urbanization in my country.

Urban agglomerations, metropolitan areas, etc. will become important spatial units of urbanization

There is obvious social residential differentiation in some megacities.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee of China proposed the policy of urbanization in the new era

Basic economic departments are the driving force for urban development and promote the development of subordinate economic departments, thus forming a cyclical and cumulative iterative process, that is, a multiplier effect