Abstract With the development of economy and increase in population,the carrying capacity of land resources is becoming smaller and smaller,so many countries begin to take marine economy development as an important content in national strategies. China has also made plans for marine economy development and the marine GDP is growing continuously while there is a tendency for regional disparity to increase. Regional disparity is a research hotspot, and the researches are on the analysis of contributions of disparity elements and the changing currency, the difference between land and marine economy, the pertinence analysis between land industry and marine industry as well as the economic situation of coastal zone, and so on.
This paper discusses different spatio-temporal scales of regional disparity of marine economy, including the overall development level, development speed and the changing of industrial structure. The authors use some quantitative methods and models, such as Std. deviation, variation coefficient, weighed variation coefficient and Theil indices, to analyse the temporal changes of inter-provincial, inter-regional and intra-regional disparties, then draw Lorezn Curve of Marine Industry to reflect the spatial agglomeration and diffusion degree of marine industry. Accordingly, authors make an analysis from both breadthwise and lengthwise angles. Just as the results suggest, the regional gap of marine economy in China from 1996-2004 can be summarized as follows:
Firstly, on the whole, regional disparities in marine economy of China are becoming larger and larger, only a little fluctuating in several years. Secondly, the regional disparities in marine economy show the different development between the north and south while Changjiang River Delta area is more developed than the north and south. Thirdly, the temporal change of marine industrial structure is different from land industrial structure, and the temporal change of marine industrial structure in various provinces of China is going into the second stage, that is the proportion of the third industry is the biggest while proportion of the second industry is the smallest.
Based on the above analysis, the authors point out the influential factors are resource endowment, spatial agglomeration of industry, country policy, foreign investment and historical basis. Finally, some suggestions are put forward to.
2008, Vol. 23 
