Abstract Since the central city in a region usually plays a role of organizer of regional economic integration, it is essential to study the urban centricity, which is defined as the outward service function of a city, for the promoting of central city development and regional economic integration. Based on review of related research approaches to urban centricity, this paper compared different measure methods of urban centricity. The index system by Zhou Yixing which is more systematic than others is used for reference here. Thus the measure method of urban centricity in this paper is a index system which is composed of five fields of indices including centricity of business, service, spatial function, manufacturing industry and economic opening as well. With the location quotient technique and principal component analysis, the urban centricity of 14 major cities in Liaoning Province is calculated. The further analysis on both the process of calculation and the results shows the characteristics and problems of urban development in Liaoning Province in the fields of regional spatial structure, social and economic system, the tertiary industry, FDI and foreign trade. 1)Double centers are the characteristics of ecomonic space in Liaoning, namely Shenyang and Dalian. The urban centricity of Shenyang scores high in the fields of wholesale and retail trade, higher education, science and research, transportation, logistics and post while Dalian shows strong functions in the fields of FDI, finance and real estate, social service, manufacturing industry and foreign trade. 2) The reform of social, economic and scientific research systems in cities of Liaoning Province lags behind, the efficiency of urban governments is unsatisfactory; 3) The tertiary industry, especially hotel, restaurants and services to households, is underdeveloped, and the secondary industry is dominant. This phenomenon shows the influence of geographical location on the urban function of service; 4) The performance of export-oriented economy in all other cities of Liaoning Province is under the average level of China except Dalian. To solve these problems above, the relevant policy advice is put forward in the paper.
This paper covers three parts: review and selection of study methods of urban centricity; calculation results of urban centricity in Liaoning Province; characteristics, problems and policy suggestions for urban development in Liaoning Province.
2008, Vol. 23 
