SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION AND EVOLUTION OF URBAN RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE——A Case Study of the Protestant Churches in Guangzhou after 1842
XUE Xi-ming1, ZHU Hong2, TANG Xue-qiong1
1. Faculty of Ecotourism, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming, 650224, China;
2. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Abstract：The spatial distribution and evolution of churches can reflect the formation and diffusion mechanism of urban religious landscapes directly, church, as an important part of religious landscapes, is the focus of religious geography researches. The paper divides the spatial layout of Guangzhou Protestant churches into 3 periods and their own characters according to historical studies. It holds that mainly influenced by the intrinsic factors of traffic and demography, the spatial diffusion pattern of Guangzhou Protestant churches had mainly experienced four phases, too. Those areas with convenient traffic, mass population and special group were often favored by the churches while some external factors also had constraints or promotions on it.1) in an era of turbulence, the part or overall spatial pattern of Guangzhou Protestant churches would be changed with the political situation at that time;2) whether churches could develop in sustainability depended on the degree of the level of economic development in the areas they situated;3) the change of urban spatial patterns itself would affect the sitting of church;4) the concentration of different religious sites would have scale effect. But this positive effect would gradually decay, and spatial competition between them would follow; 5) when given selective opportunities, church would be placed in areas with good environment; 6) information society and cultural globalization also make many new problems for the development of spatial layout of urban church. The paper believes that the construction of urban religious sites must be compatible with the scale of believers, official religious policy, and the socio-economic development of urban areas as well. How to consider the new church site and its land use patterns into the overall urban planning, and how to coordinate the original religious landscapes with other cultural landscapes in space may be a research topic deserved to be continued in depth in the future.
薛熙明, 朱竑, 唐雪琼. 城市宗教景观的空间布局及演化——以1842年以来的广州基督教教堂为例[J]. 人文地理, 2009, 24(1): 48-52.
XUE Xi-ming, ZHU Hong, TANG Xue-qiong. SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION AND EVOLUTION OF URBAN RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE——A Case Study of the Protestant Churches in Guangzhou after 1842. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2009, 24(1): 48-52.
