China’s Special Poor Areas and Their Geographical Conditions
Xin Xu,
Chengjin Wang,
Shiping Ma and
Wenzhong Zhang
Additional contact information
Xin Xu: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Chengjin Wang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Shiping Ma: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Wenzhong Zhang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-15
Abstract:
Special functional areas and poor areas tend to spatially overlap, and poverty is a common feature of both. Special poor areas, taken as a kind of “policy space,” have attracted the interest of researchers and policymakers around the world. This study proposes a basic concept of special poor areas and uses this concept to develop a method to identify them. Poor counties in China are taken as the basic research unit and overlaps in spatial attributes including old revolutionary bases, borders, ecological degradation, and ethnic minorities, are used to identify special poor areas. The authors then analyze their basic quantitative structure and pattern of distribution to determine the geographical bases’ formation and development. The results show that 304 counties in China, covering a vast territory of 12 contiguous areas that contain a small population, are lagging behind the rest of the country. These areas are characterized by rich energy and resource endowments, important ecological functions, special historical status, and concentrated poverty. They are considered “special poor” for geographical reasons such as a relatively harsh natural geographical environment, remote location, deteriorating ecological environment, and an inadequate infrastructure network and public service system. Some areas suffer from underdevelopment and even lack the infrastructure for basic living. In order to prevent further deterioration of the economic, social, and ecological environments in these areas, targeted policies need to be implemented.
Keywords: special poor areas; contiguous areas; geographical conditions; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8636/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8636/ (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:15:p:8636-:d:607310
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().