Abstract The sense of place is an important research area of humanistic social transformation in human geography. Now a sophisticated framework of sense of place has already been built abroad, and the study on subject is also increasingly more and more in China. This paper describes the dimensions and the level division of the sense of place on the basis of literature review. At the same time, it also analyzes the formation mechanism, influencing factors of the sense of place, summarizes it's research method and research object. The study found that the sense of place is a multi-dimensional concept, the dimensions become different from each other because of the regional object, perspective and research, and it can divide into different levels. The influence factors can be divided into personal, physical, social and environment factors, personal factors include gender, age, live or residence time, occupation, place of birth, nationality and level of education, etc; physical environmental factors mainly include the unique natural environment,history and culture, architecture and public space, etc; social environmental factors mainly include the social ties, social economic status, participation, welfare and health, religion, folk custom and government management, etc. The research method is more diversity, in addition to using the traditional methods such as questionnaire and depth interview, also used pictures, photography, cognitive map, ethnographic analysis, participant observation, group discussion and so on. The research object is more extensive, it can for residents, tourists, immigrants, women, recreation, the real estate owners of tourism, drivers, climbers, operators and other objects of sense of place are all involved. In addition, the paper points out that the further study of this issue in China should proceed from the following aspects.
2015, Vol. 30 
