Abstract China National Tourism Administration has authorized 187 attractions as the first National 4A Tourism Attractions in 2000, consisting of almost all the most popular and important tourist destinations in China. Spatial relationships among these attractions and relationships between attractions and their source cities are significant to the development and marketing of regional tourism.
The paper firstly focuses on the inter attraction relationship of 4A Tourism Attractions. Two spatial analyzing methods are employed to observe the spatial structure of 4A attractions in the nation:average nearest distance (rE=1/2(n/A)1/2=1/2D1/2) and Gini coefficient. The result of average nearest distance measure shows that the nearest linear distance between 4A attraction is 74.29 km, lower than the hypothetic stochastic nearest distance 113km. The distribution of 4A attractions is a type of agglomeration. Gini coefficient helps to observe the 4A attractions distribution in eight geographical zones in the country. The calculating results (G=0.8561, C=0.1439) prove that the 4A attractions distribution is concentrated in eight zones.
Secondly, the paper pays attention to the spatial structure of Attraction city relationship, namely the spatial relationship between 4A attractions and their nearest source cities. Non equilibrium Index and Geographical Relation Ratio are used to observe the spatial structure between 187 4A attractions and 667 cities over 200 thousands population. A good Equilibrium Index (0.4426) and a relatively high Geographical Relation Ratio (77.87) testify that 4A attractions have a good spatial relationship with their surrounding cities. Precise "corridor" distances between 4A attractions and cities are also investigated. According to the analysis, the average distance between 4A attractions and cities of 500-1000 thousands population are similar with that of cities of 1000-2000 thousands. There is no obvious difference between the former and that between attractions and cities of over 2000 thousands, too.
Findings of analysis are:1) National 4A tourism attractions are concentrated in some areas in China, i.e. Central China, North China, and South China; 2) Most of the national 4A attractions are located within a short distance away from their source cities.
2003, Vol. 18 
