Abstract：With the promotion of regional economy integration, motivation of industrial benefit and the conversion of consumption concept, some of the peripheral tourism areas have grown into "potential areas" from "fringe areas" in the regional tourism development at present. As one of the widespread tourism area types, the development of the peripheral tourism areas now has revealed its great significance in research. Scholars from abroad have paid close attention to the peripheral tourism areas since 1970s,the abroad research on defining the location and function layout of the peripheral tourism areas; the differences between the peripheral tourism areas and the core tourism areas;the development countermeasures of the peripheral tourism areas; the core-periphery space structure model constructing and its influence. The research on the peripheral tourism areas started at the beginning of the 21century, which seems to be a little laggard in comparison with that of foreign countries. The research first started from the perspective of urban geography and economical geography. After a decade of development, it researchs on the discussing and defining the concept of the peripheral tourism areas; empirical research of different spatial scales of the peripheral tourism areas; the cooperation of the peripheral tourism areas and the core tourism areas;tourism "core-periphery" spatial structure; the spatial layout pattern and evolution of tourism "core-periphery"; The paper conducts a review of literatures on the study of peripheral tourism areas both at home and abroad, and then carries out a comparative analysis on relative researches at home and abroad from the perspective of research types, research contents and research methods, then points out the problems and deficiencies of current researches:from the perspective of research types, most researches paid more stress on un-dimensional peripheral tourism areas and were lacking in systematic study. At last, based on the analysis, the paper summarizes that the important components in the study of peripheral tourism areas include deepening the studies on the connotations and types of peripheral tourism areas, paying attention to the peripheralization measure, probing into spatial evolution and dynamic mechanism of peripheral tourism areas and summarizing the development path of peripheral tourism areas.
