以蔚州志和蔚县地名资料汇编为数据源,借助GIS核密度估计方法研究了蔚县乡村聚落商周时期至清朝3000多年间的空间格局演化特点。总体演化过程呈现由集中分布趋向随机分布的特征;演化过程中形成了四个不同阶段的区域空间格局:"缓慢增长的壶流河一侧‘一’字形‘双核’分布模式"、"普遍增长的壶流河下游‘多核’分布模式"、"快速增长的壶流河两侧大范围增长带的空间扩展模式"、"稳定增长的壶流河两侧带状‘多核’空间分布模式"。根据演化特点和历史文化资料分析,总结了蔚县乡村聚落演化的自然条件、军事历史条件、人口迁移和经济贸易发展四个方面驱动因素。研究表明核密度估计法可以较好的表现聚落空间格局,方便历史聚落演化不同阶段的对比分析。

Taking Yuxian at northwest of Hebei province as survey region, using historical toponyms information and other historical materials, and applying GIS kernel density estimation method, this article researches the spatial pattern evolution characteristics of Yuxian rural settlements from the Shang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. This research shows that rural settlements of Yuxian settled as early as Shang Dynasty. On the space, rural settlements were firstly appeared at Daiwangcheng town region. It then spread to the southwest and northeast of Yuxian along the Huliu River. According to the statistics analysis of rural settlements quantity increasing in different periods, we can find that the quantity of rural settlements continued growth during the whole period and the growth incidence of Ming Dynasty was the highest. New rural settlements appeared at every period, but concentrated on Ming and Qing Dynasty, especially in the Ming Dynasty the quantity of new rural settlements came to a peak. By the spatial visualization,we find that the characteristic of overall pattern evolution is by the centralized distribution to random distribution, meanwhile, in the evolution process formed regional spatial structure of four different stages.In different historical periods, the high density area of rural settlements spatial distribution is concentrated on the central plain district and the smaller density area is distributed in the mountains district in the southern of Yuxian. The research indicates that kernel density estimation method can show preferable settlements spatial pattern and analyze settlements evolution at different historical stages.