Abstract From the perspective of sociology, this paper studies the urbanization of Huangshan Tangkou town. The result shows that the industrial structure of Tangkou town turns from "one-two-three" to "three-two-one" and the principal industry transforms from agriculture to tertiary industry which makes tourism as the leading industry. The income of local residents in Tangkou town is mainly from tourism industry, and the employments primarily concentrate on tourism and related industries. On the land use of cities and towns, the tourism land increases rapidly in Tangkou town. Simultaneously, agricultural landscape changes to townscape. And with the quick development of tourism industry, infrastructure construction is well developed in Tangkou town. People's living conditions, life styles and neighborhood relationships have the characteristics of urban communities. The ideology of the residents changes significantly and shows the characteristics of urban residents such as operation principle, education idea and life style. The social role of local residents changes from the farmers to managers, and then to modern entrepreneurs. The function of Tangkou town also transforms from the agriculture community to the tourism community. The tourism urbanization becomes one of the uppermost paths that the urbanization of Huangshan Tangkou town follows. To compare with the changes of "hardware" including land use, increase of population and infrastructure, the changes of "software", like local residents' life style, social role, manner and the function evolution, are more influential and significant in the development of urbanization. The authors also point out that the good location, rich resources, government guide and participation of residents are the main driving force of tourism urbanization of Tangkou town.
2010, Vol. 25 
