With the advancement of urbanization and the profound transformation of socio-economic development in China, land use transition has become a complex research field involving multiple disciplines and dimensions. This paper comprehensively uses bibliometric analysis and systematic review methods to systematically sort out the research progress of land use transition in China from following dimensions: development context, theoretical framework, model and methodology, effect and mechanism, and regulation path. The study finds that: (1) Since the introduction of land use transition research to China in 2001, the field has flourished in the aspects of project funding, publication of monographs, and talent cultivation. Through hotspot analysis, it is found that research has shifted from being technology-driven to policy and economic-driven, and finally focused on multi-functional synergy and sustainable development. (2) Theoretical research can be divided into three levels: description-explanation, process characterization and diagnosis, and mutual feedback mechanism and regulation, forming a research paradigm of "dominant morphology-recessive morphology" coupling. The transition measurement method presents a three-dimensional characteristic of integration of 3S technology, mathematical model simulation, and field investigation. (3) Driven by the dual strategies of rural vitalization and food security, the socio-economic effects of land use transitions are manifested as a cascading response of farmers' livelihoods, factor flow, and industrial upgrading; related ecological and environmental effects show the bidirectional characteristics of negative effects and positive synergistic effects. (4) The driving mechanism of land use transitions is analyzed from the "element-structure-system" perspective, and its regulation system is discussed from multiple dimensions such as engineering technology innovation, institutional innovation, policy intervention, and multi-dimensional collaborative governance. (5) Future research needs to focus on breakthroughs in multi-scale transition threshold identification, complex system feedback simulation, regional model extraction, and optimization and regulation of transition through theoretical and methodological innovations. This study provides not only knowledge support for the construction of a land use transition research theoretical system with Chinese characteristics, but also decision-making support for the modernization of national territorial space governance and urban-rural integrated development.

Main function zoning (MFZ) is the fundamental system of China's territorial development and protection. Through differentiated functional orientation, the core objectives of MFZ are to guide the orderly flow of resources across regions and optimize the spatial pattern of national development. This study evaluates the impacts, their heterogeneities among four types of zones, and underlying mechanisms of MFZ planning on China's population redistribution using county-level data from the three latest national population censuses and causal inference tests through difference-in-differences models. The results show that: The MFZ effects generally align with policy orientation. Post-implementation, optimized development zones, prioritized development zones, main agricultural zones and key ecological zones experienced declining population growth rates, accelerated population agglomeration, accelerated population decline, and growth-to-decline transition, respectively. Using main agricultural zones as reference, the planning reinforced the population concentration advantages of prioritized development zones. The policy effect exhibits dual heterogeneity across regions and hierarchical levels. Population changes in agricultural and ecological zones mostly complied with planning guidance, whereas only 40% of county-level units within prioritized development zones achieved the policy goal of accelerated agglomeration. National-level prioritized development zones demonstrated approximately twice the impact of provincial-level counterparts. Population migration from restricted development zones to urbanized areas predominantly occurred through cross-regional migration rather than intra-prefecture movements, making the policy goal of "concentrated equilibrium" within prefecture-level cities difficult to achieve. The planning promoted shifts in influencing factors of population redistribution within each type of MFZ. The diminished role of secondary industries and enhanced influence of tertiary sectors in optimized zones, along with weakened economic drivers in ecological zones, aligned with planning objectives. However, industrialization in prioritized development zones failed to significantly boost population agglomeration, while agricultural zones remained profoundly influenced by industrialization and economic development, both deviating from intended planning orientations. The findings suggest that the new-round planning could moderately concentrate urbanized area layouts, clarify development sequences for prioritized development zones, and implement more targeted differentiated governance requirements for restricted development zones.

The spatiotemporal evolution of settlements during historical periods is of great significance for a better understanding of past environment changes, land use, and the dynamics of human-land relationships. Chinese historical documents contain abundant information on settlements, serving as an important proxy for the study on the evolution settlements over the past century. Historical documents typically employ place names to record the spatial location of settlements, but the existing historical place names spatial databases often fall short in automating the precise localization of micro-scale place names, such as settlements, which in turn impedes the advancement of research on the spatial reconstruction and spatiotemporal evolution of these historical settlements. This study focuses on the automated matching method of historical settlement place names, utilizing Suzhou Prefecture during the late Qing Dynasty (1820-1911) as the research area. It selected 11340 settlement place names and their associated primary-level division data extracted from local chronicles, and combined contemporary place names matching techniques to construct a conceptual model for correlating ancient and modern place names. The study identifies characteristics of place names evolution, establishes rules for place names matching, and proposes an algorithm for the aggregation and matching of settlement names predicated on similarity metrics, thereby accomplish the spatial reconstruction of historical settlements within the research area. On this basis, the spatial distribution and urban-rural relationships of the reconstruction results were analyzed. The results indicated that approximately 98% of the settlements, relative to the total number documented in the literature, were reconstructed using an automated place names matching method. The spatial resolution of the reconstruction was approximately 1.4 km × 1.4 km, and the consistency between the automatic matching outcomes and the manually verified results was about 96%. During the late Qing Dynasty, the distribution of settlements in the study area exhibited agglomerative characteristics, with a hierarchical structure of settlement networks centered on the western suburbs of Suzhou city. However, urban-rural connections within the network were sparse. The findings from this study have enhanced the technical methods for the spatial reconstruction of historical settlement space and deepened the scientific understanding of the characteristics and influencing factors of long-term settlement evolution.

The urban-rural integration in the new era requires the coupled and coordinated development of new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization. This paper constructs an evaluation index system for new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization, and uses the modified coupling coordination degree model, spatial Markov chain, random forest model and other methods to quantitatively analyze the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of coupling coordination types of new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization in Central China from 2007 to 2022. The results show that: (1) From 2007 to 2022, the coupling coordination type in the study area experienced a transition from moderate imbalance to minimal coordination, with regions of severe imbalance gradually disappearing and high-quality coordinated areas emerging, and the coupling coordination relationship has continuously improved. In terms of spatial distribution, high-value zones of coupling coordination level have remained concentrated in provincial capitals, while low-value zones have shifted toward western edge and the junction of Henan-Anhui-Hubei provinces, with boundary effects gradually emerging. (2) Regardless of the neighborhood conditions, the transition of the coupling coordination state exhibits "path dependence" and "self-locking" effects, while displaying "club convergence" phenomena, there is the possibility of transition to higher level but it is difficult to achieve leapfrog development. The geographical background plays an important role in the evolution of the coupling coordination state, which has an obvious spatial spillover effect, and the Markov prediction results also prove that spatial spillover effect will exist for a long time, the long-term evolution trend of the coupling coordination state is relatively good. (3) In the process of coupling and coordinated development, the level of industrial development plays a core leading role, the level of regional investment, the level of scientific and technological innovation, the level of human capital, and the employment structure of the population offer guarantees in terms of essential factors, and the geographical distance plays a restrictive role. Finally, this paper puts forward specific countermeasures and suggestions to provide scientific basis for the coordinated development of new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization in Central China.

Developing new quality productive forces is a significant proposition emphasized at the meeting on promoting the full revitalization of Northeast China in the new era. Subsequently, research on the spatiotemporal evolution and spatial differentiation of new quality productive forces has become a cutting-edge and hot topic in geographic science. Based on the theory of productivity layout in economic geography, this paper introduces a spatial perspective from geography into the study of new quality productive forces and systematically examines the locational conditions and spatial layout of new quality productive forces from two dimensions: policy-side and factor-side. The paper constructs a three-dimensional evaluation indicator system for new quality productive forces, consisting of "new laborer-new labor materials-new labor object", and employs threshold regression model and coupling coordination degree model to explore the dynamic relationship and spatial characteristics between local government attention and the level of new quality productive forces from 2009 to 2022. The results show that: (1) From the perspective of policy-side, there is a growing trend of following the crowd and repetitive competition in the development of new quality productive forces among provinces. (2) From the perspective of factor-side, there is spatial heterogeneity in the level of new quality productive forces across different regions, presenting a gradient pattern of "high in the east and low in the west", and the spatial distribution of new quality productive forces is more imbalanced than regional development. (3) From the perspective of dynamic analysis, there is a U-shaped threshold characteristic for the role of government attention in developing new quality productive forces, and there is a positive coupling relationship between the two. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the matching and connection between policy-side and factor-side of regional new quality productive forces. The conclusions of this study fill the research gap in the relevant fields of geography and provide policy inspiration for optimizing productivity layout, developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions, and promoting high-quality regional development.

With the trend of the "Internet of Everything" breaking the time and space boundaries of information dissemination, virtual and real interactive activity spaces are gradually replacing physical activity spaces and becoming the dominant form of carrying out human activities. For the tourist town, the "user-generated content" and community sharing platform represented by TikTok not only improves the convenience of tourists in planning trips, booking products, obtaining real-time information, and sharing experiences, but also enhances tourists' perception and interest in the living environment and cultural atmosphere of the ancient town. Under the background of the integration of virtual and real in the digital age, it is very important to explore the spatial characteristics and internal relations of the online and offline heat of the ancient town for understanding the phenomenon of large-scale tourist gathering. From the perspective of environmental behavior and attention economy theory, this study used multi-source heterogeneous data and spatial econometric analysis methods to take Dayan Ancient Town in Lijiang as an example to explore the following: 1) What are the spatial performance characteristics of online and offline popularity in tourist towns? 2) What is the potential relationship between online and offline popularity in tourist towns? The results were as follows: 1) The spatial correlation between online and offline popularity heat in Dayan Ancient Town was high, and the overall distribution was extremely uneven. The top 10% of the space unit's online popularity contributed to more than 90% of the traffic and attendance, showing clear power-law attenuation characteristics. The top 10% of the space units of offline popularity contributed more than 33.6% of the total tourists, showing a tourist gathering mode with Sifang Street as the core and decreasing to the periphery. 2) The spatial and temporal differentiation of tourist volume in ancient towns was the result of the interaction between online and offline environments. In the online dimension, the concentration of tourists, number of digital content punch cards, and number of digital content views formed a positive promotional effect. In the offline dimension, tourists' mobile behavior was positively affected by shopping service facilities, attractions, leisure and entertainment facilities, functional density, building density, and sDNA (spatial Design Network Analysis) proximity (r=400 m), and negatively affected by infrastructure, educational service facilities, and sDNA accessibility (r=n). Tourists' calling behavior was positively affected by accommodation service facilities, infrastructure, and functional density. 3) The online and offline popularity of ancient tourist towns was transformed by the influence of digital media traffic on tourists' punching and mobile behavior. In this process, the environmental characteristics and cultural landscapes of traditional villages were packaged as tourism attractions. Local tourism resources were transformed into digital content through tourists' card-making behavior. High-quality digital content accumulated attention capital through traffic transmission, drove tourist movement and consumption demand gathering, and created a new "net red card" in the physical geographical space.

Promoting social green transformation is an inherent requirement and a key task in the national strategy for a comprehensive green transformation of the economy and society. However, research on the quantitative characterization and spatiotemporal patterns of social green transformation remains relatively lacking. To address this gap, this paper introduces social psychology theory to construct a quantitative characterization framework for social green transformation. Using 19 urban agglomerations in China as the study area and following the "pattern-process-effect" research logic, the study integrates methods such as entropy-weighted TOPSIS, spatial Markov chains, and Random Forest model to sequentially reveal the spatiotemporal evolution patterns, spatiotemporal transformation, and dynamic impacts of the social green transformation on the economic green transformation. Finally, a comprehensive quantitative framework for regional green transformation is proposed. The results show that: (1) During the study period, the level of social green transformation in China's urban agglomerations showed a fluctuating upward trend, with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations leading in social green transformation, while those along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains, Lanzhou-Xi'an region, and Ningxia along the Yellow River were relatively lagging. (2) There is a phenomenon of club convergence and spatial spillover effects in the social green transformation of urban agglomerations, and the transformation exhibits path dependence and spatial dependence, with low probabilities of cross-level and cross-regional transitions. (3) Social green transformation serves as a significant driving force for the green transformation of urban economies, and this driving effect has been strengthening over time. The role of social green transformation in advancing the strategy of ecological prioritization and green development is increasingly profound. Furthermore, this study helps to improve existing research on regional green transformation evaluation, providing new methods and ideas that better align with and respond to the current comprehensive green transformation strategy.

A series of regional major strategies has continuously been implemented since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (2012). The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomerations are the core spatial carriers of regional major strategies. In the new situation of decreasing and aging population, the growth of employment and the changes in employment structure in the four major urban agglomerations will have a profound impact on the regional sustainable development. Based on the location quotient model, and spatial autocorrelation analysis, the spatial and temporal patterns of employment size and employment industrial structure in the four major urban agglomerations were examined by using the sectoral population data from the 2000, 2010 and 2020 national population censuses. Comparative analysis was conducted in the context of regional major strategies to explore the regularities of urban agglomeration employment growth and structural transformation. The study finds that: (1) The scale of employment in the four major urban agglomerations continues to grow, but the overall growth rate slows down. The overall pattern of employment distribution remains stable, and the high-value areas of employment growth rate have shifted from the central cities to the surrounding cities of the urban agglomerations, forming a trend of balanced distribution and multi-point support within the urban agglomerations. (2) The trend of advanced and high-tech development in employment structure is obvious, and the distribution of employment types within urban agglomerations presents a clear "core-periphery" pattern. The central city always maintains a structure of "high-tech manufacturing and high-tech service industry", while the employment structure of the cities near the central city of the urban agglomeration is characterized by an alternating distribution of "low-tech manufacturing and high-tech service industry" and "high-tech manufacturing and low-tech service industry". The majority of employment in peripheral cities of urban agglomerations belongs to the structural type of "low-tech manufacturing and low-tech service industry". (3) The continuous growth of the employed population and the advanced and high-tech employment structure have created conditions for the four major urban agglomerations to carry out regional major strategies and participate in global competition. However, urban agglomerations face different challenges. It is essential to strengthen the multiplier effect of high-tech employment, promote the qualitative transformation of non-high-tech employment, and implement differentiated employment attraction policies to foster coordinated development among urban agglomerations and ensure the effective implementation of regional major strategy.

This study analyzes the development of the discipline of human geography in China over the past 40 years, based on projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) from 1986 to 2023. The analysis focuses on research directions and themes, the hosting institutions and their spatial distribution, as well as the structure of high-level talents. This paper primarily employs methods such as keyword cloud analysis, probability density distribution analysis, and spatial analysis. The findings are as follows: (1) Although the number and financial volume of funded projects have grown rapidly, human geography remains at a disadvantage in terms of scholarly influence and the magnitude of funding support. (2) The majority of approved projects and funds are concentrated under the application codes for Urban and Rural Geography (D0109) and Economic Geography (D0108), though growth in these areas has been limited in recent years. Promising areas of focus include cultural geography, political geography, and behavioral geography. (3) New research topics have emerged, such as spatiotemporal behavior and quality of life, social space and mobility, innovation networks, city networks, rural revitalization, geopolitics, and carbon reduction. (4) The distribution of approved NSFC projects in human geography generally follows a Pareto distribution and is predominantly located east of the Hu Line. (5) There are relatively few high-level talents in human geography in China, with an unbalanced gender ratio. To advance the field, we propose to raise human geography's profile in interdisciplinary dialogue, to consolidate disciplinary consensus, to articulate key research priorities and assessment frameworks, address developmental disparities among subfields, and prioritize groundbreaking research agendas. The study underscores key unresolved issues in the discipline's governance and financing, including the generality-specificity spectrum in knowledge generation, and reconciling inter-direction competition with distributive justice in resource allocation. The research advances scholarly understanding by documenting funding-driven development patterns in Chinese human geography while addressing dual challenges of international disciplinary recognition and domestic academic consensus-building.

The population problem has always been an overall, long-term, and strategic issue facing China; the fertility rate can reflect the population problem, and the identification of the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics and driving factors of fertility rate is of great significance to the long-term balanced development of population and the coordination of human-land relationship. Based on the census data of 2000, 2010, and 2020, the Theil index, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and geographically weighted regression models were used to explore the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of city fertility in China from 2000 to 2020. The results showed that: (1) Based on the perspective of time series characteristics, from 2000 to 2020, China's fertility rate presented a downward trend, the degree of distribution first increased and then decreased with the passage of time, the discrete trend between cities decreased, and the regional differences in fertility rate have narrowed. (2) Based on the perspective of spatial pattern, the fertility rate is high in the south and west and low in the north and east, whereas heterogeneity is obvious. Specifically, the west side of the Hu Line is higher than that of the east side, but the fertility rate fluctuation on the east side is higher than that on the west side. China's four major economic regions are in the order of Western > the Central> the Eastern > the Northeast, with fertility rates still declining in the Western and Northeast regions. Focusing on the five major urban agglomerations, the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River has the highest fertility rate, followed by the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, and the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, with the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration having the lowest fertility rate. Overall, the H-H cluster agglomeration areas are mainly distributed in the southern and western regions of China, while the L-L cluster agglomeration areas are concentrated in the northern and eastern regions. (3) Based on the perspective of influencing factors, economic, policy, demographic, and social factors are always the key factors affecting fertility, with economic and policy factors generally having a greater impact on China's fertility rate. The spatial heterogeneity of economic factors represented by per capita GDP and urbanization rate is significant, the positive impact of policy factors in northern and eastern China is significant, the population quality and fertility rate in the west of the Hu Line are strongly negatively correlated, the population number and fertility rate in southeast China are positively correlated, the negative impact of marriage and childbearing on fertility on the east side of the Hu Line is greater than that on the west side, and the influence of the concept of raising children and preventing old age in some areas in the east is still greater.

As part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has actively participated in global port construction over the past decade. This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of these efforts and enrich the theoretical framework of BRI development. We constructed a port vitality index (PVI) using shipping big data. The PVI was calculated across four key dimensions (production, maritime, service, and radiation) using 17 fundamental indicators based on the port transportation chain model. This study evaluated the vitality of port development over the past decade. The results were as follows. (1) There was significant growth from 2013 to 2022 in the overall vitality index of ports invested in China, with Asia and Europe being the primary hubs of port vitality, and Africa emerging as a major center of growth. (2) There was higher vitality growth among ports where China was involved in both investment and operations, compared to ports where China's role was limited to construction. (3) Chinese port construction companies held global power by helping developing countries or regions lacking transportation capacity quickly establish international transportation capabilities. (4) Terminal operators and shipping companies invested in ports with strong underlying conditions, located on key shipping routes with minimal economic risks, to ensure effective investment outcomes. (5) Some small and medium-sized ports gained rapid production vitality through investment, yet lacked maritime vitality, as insufficient urban market growth hinders the increase in maritime vitality. The port vitality evaluation method proposed in this study provides insights for adjusting China's future port investment strategies and optimizing location choices for enterprise investments. It also enriches the theoretical framework of the BRI development and provides practical evidence of China's commitment to fostering shared prosperity with the Global South through port infrastructure development.

The co-occurrence of droughts at multiple time scales in the water source area (Upper Hanjiang River, UH) and receiving area (northern North China, NNC) of the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion project highlights the need to identify common climatic drivers for these concurrent phenomena. Using reconstructed drought/flood grade data and sunspot series from 1700 to 2023, this study analyzed the correlations of droughts/floods in the Upper Hanjiang River and northern North China with sunspots at 11-, 30- and 50-year scales. The results show that the correlation between sunspots and droughts/floods in these two areas varied in stages over time. During high sunspot periods, the frequency of extreme drought events increased in both areas. The phase change of the correlation between sunspots and droughts/floods in the Upper Hanjiang River and northern North China significantly influenced the shift in the drought-flood correspondence between the two areas. When droughts/floods in the Upper Hanjiang River and northern North China align with or oppose sunspot variations, the droughts/floods in the two areas are predominantly positively or negatively correlated. Both droughts/floods in the Upper Hanjiang River and northern North China as well as sunspots share inter-annual cycles of about 2-4 years, inter-decadal cycles of about 11-12 years, and multi-decadal cycles of about 20-30 years and 50 years. Sunspot variations may influence the droughts and floods in these two areas across multiple time scales. Additionally, when sunspots increase significantly and abruptly, the Upper Hanjiang River and northern North China tend to be more drought-prone.

The advent and deep permeation of digital media technologies have precipitated a paradigmatic shift in the ontological and phenomenological understanding of place. No longer conceived as a stable, bounded physical container, place in the contemporary era is dynamically produced, mediated, and continually reconstituted through the intricate interplay of platform architectures, algorithmic operations, locative media, and networked social practices. This transformation has catalyzed the emergence of "digital sense of place" as a critical interdisciplinary concern. Scholars across the disciplines of human geography, environmental psychology, sociology, anthropology, and media studies have engaged with this phenomenon, yet their inquiries have largely progressed in parallel, resulting in a fragmented intellectual landscape characterized by conceptual dispersion, methodological insularity, and theoretical compartmentalization. A cohesive framework capable of elucidating the complex, recursive coupling between the digital and the placal remains conspicuously absent. To address this gap, this article conducts a systematic knowledge archaeology and synthesis of relevant literature spanning the years 1980 to 2025. Employing bibliometric analysis and critical discourse review, we trace the genealogical development of place scholarship within each of the core disciplines and map their convergent trajectories toward the digital. Our analysis identifies a fundamental theoretical evolution: a move from essentialist, static, and physically deterministic models of place (exemplified by Tuan's topophilia and Relph's place identity) toward relational, processual, and mediated conceptions. Human geography's "relational turn" and its subsequent engagement with "hybrid space" dismantled the physical-digital binary. Environmental psychology meticulously operationalized and measured place attachment, later extending its quantitative paradigms to validate the psychological reality of digital emotional bonds. Sociology and anthropology foregrounded the social construction of place, revealing how power dynamics, cultural practices, and embodied rituals undergird place-making—a perspective extended to digital communities and virtual belonging. Media studies evolved from treating media as mere representational tools to recognizing platforms and locative media as constitutive infrastructures that actively shape spatial perception and social interaction. The synthesis of these multidisciplinary insights exposes their collective yet unintegrated recognition of digital sense of place as a multifaceted, systemic phenomenon. Building on this foundation, this paper makes a central theoretical contribution by proposing "digital sense of place" as a systemically generative integrative analytical framework. This framework posits digital sense of place not as a possessed attribute but as an ongoing, emergent process generated within a dynamic system composed of five interconnected subsystems: (1) the technological-infrastructural subsystem (platforms, algorithms, interfaces); (2) the affective-psychological subsystem (digitally mediated attachment, identity, meaning); (3) the social-relational subsystem (networked communities and mediated interactions); (4) the cultural-semiotic subsystem (the remediation and circulation of place-based narratives and memories); and (5) the power-political economic subsystem (the governance, ownership, and algorithmic curation of digital space). These subsystems operate in continuous feedback loops, co-constituting the lived experience of place in a digital society. This systemic, generative perspective facilitates a critical analysis of core tensions inherent in digital place-making, such as between delocalization and re-localization, authentic affective experience and platform-engineered engagement, and discursive openness and algorithmic exclusion. Consequently, this integrated framework advances the field from multidisciplinary parallelism toward theoretically robust, holistic explanation. It provides a potent lens for examining pressing contemporary issues, including the affective politics of platform societies, the governance of smart cities, the preservation of digital heritage, and the ethical implications of algorithmically modulated spatial experience. The framework thus repositions digital sense of place as a central analytical node for understanding how locality is persistently forged, contested, and lived within the matrix of contemporary techno-social life.

With the rapid growth of the digital economy, integrating the cultural and tourism industries has become a key driver of regional economic development and industrial upgrading. As a vital component of the cultural and digital sectors, the gaming industry facilitates integration through digital innovation and creative design. While existing research on cultural-tourism integration is extensive, little attention has been paid to how virtual cultural symbols transform and drive this process in the digital era. Recent advancements in gaming have blurred the boundaries between virtual and real experiences through virtual scene construction, cultural symbol reproduction, immersive interactions, and social media dissemination, accelerating the transformation of cultural resources into tourism assets. Understanding how the gaming industry promotes cultural-tourism integration enhances existing research frameworks, deepens insights into the dissemination and reproduction of cultural symbols in the digital economy, and offers new regional cultural tourism development strategies. Using Black Myth: Wukong as a case study, this research applies the field conversion theory to examine the flow and transformation of cultural symbols between virtual and real-world tourism contexts. It explores two key questions: (1) How does the gaming industry reconstruct traditional cultural symbols through digitalization and integrate them into real-world tourism using field conversion mechanisms? and (2) How does the participation and feedback of different groups influence the effectiveness of this integration, shaping the gaming industry's role in regional cultural tourism development? The findings indicate that digital technologies not only overcome spatial constraints on cultural resources but also enhance interactivity and dissemination, promoting the transformation of symbolic capital into cultural, social, and economic capital. However, engagement levels varied across groups. Players deeply immersed in virtual cultural symbols strengthened the connection between gaming and real-world tourism through social media, offline activities, and digital communities. In contrast, non-players rely on traditional tourism information sources and respond passively and indirectly to game-driven cultural symbols. This study identifies capital accumulation, habit migration, and stakeholder collaboration as the core mechanisms facilitating cultural-tourism integration. While gaming fosters cultural identity, tourism consumption, and economic diversification, it also presents challenges, such as infrastructure strain and tourism industry homogenization due to sudden visitor influxes. This research expands the scope of the theory's application by integrating the field conversion theory into the study of gaming and cultural-tourism integration. It examines how cultural symbols gain value through cross-field transformations. Furthermore, it highlights how digital games that leverage virtual reality, short videos, and social media facilitate cultural symbols' cross-regional flow and reproduction. Moving beyond static cultural transmission models, this study reveals the dynamic evolution of virtual culture and offers fresh perspectives on the development of the cultural industry in the digital economy.

The administrative hierarchy of the city in China determines its ability of mobilizing resources and the direction of migrations, and it is also the direct subjects of policy implementation. Previous literature has rarely analyzed migrations from the perspective of urban administrative hierarchy. Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this study explores the patterns of migration across urban administrative hierarchy and the influencing factors of destination choice. The results show that according to the urban administrative hierarchy, upward migrations are dominant. Spatially, inter-regional migration to the eastern region is a prominent feature. For the population that has migrated multiple times, subsequent migrations are dominated by horizontal and intra-regional migrations, with the proportion of downward migrations increasing and exceeding that of upward migrations. In the first migration, ordinary prefecture cities and provincial capital cities are preferred. In the subsequent migrations, the proportions of county-level cities (counties), separately planned cities and directly-administered municipalities have increased, which reflect repositioning of population after the first migration. Economic profits are the main driving force of migration, the socio-economic attributes and hukou-registered places affect the choice of destinations, which reflect the migrants' employment competitiveness, employment preferences, life cycle and path dependence on hukou-registered places. The choice of destination is also related to the migration scope, provincial capital cities are being preferred in intra-provincial migrations, while directly-administered municipalities are most likely to be chosen in inter-provincial migrations. This paper provides evidence for the theory of population migration that urban administrative hierarchy works, which shows a different pattern from Ravenstein's laws of step migration, and deepens the connotation of push-pull theory. The findings of the study are of revelatory value for the implementation of the new urbanization policy with counties as important carriers.

Ecological resilience refers to an urban agglomeration's ability to resist, adapt, and recover from external disturbances. Enhancing ecological resilience is crucial for promoting high-quality development in the modern era. However, few studies have evaluated the ecological resilience of urban agglomerations from the perspective of human-land interactions or explored its evolutionary mechanism. This study assesses the interannual variation of ecological resilience in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River urban agglomeration, focusing on resistance, adaptation, and recovery. The Least Squares Structural Equation Model is employed to analyze the impact degree and pathways through which human-land interactions affect ecological resilience. The results indicate that from 2000 to 2020, resistance, adaptability, and recoverability exhibited fluctuating trends over time and an unbalanced spatial distribution. Ecological resilience initially decreased but later improved, with significant spatial heterogeneity, forming a "higher in the southeast and lower in the northwest" pattern. Natural environment improvement (coefficient: 0.42) and regional policies (coefficient: 0.18) had significant positive direct effects on ecological resilience, while urbanization exerted a significant negative effect (coefficient: -0.26). Although green innovation had no significant direct effect, it exhibited significant indirect influence, with the most significant pathway being green innovation→regional policy→natural environment→ecological resilience (coefficient: 0.18). This study enhances our understanding of how the natural environment, green innovation, and regional policies shape ecological resilience, providing a scientific reference for urban agglomeration development that fosters harmony between humans and nature.

Examining the spatial effects of the host country's geo-setting and its changes on the investor country's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) within a risk framework is of critical importance. It aids in understanding the host country's geo-setting and risks, supports the investor country in formulating strategic decisions and precise investments, and contributes to the design of geo-setting systems. Utilizing multi-source heterogeneous data, this study develops an analytical framework to assess the impact of the host country's geo-setting on the investor country's OFDI, considering three dimensions: political, economic, and social aspects. By applying the full permutation polygon method and the modified spatial Durbin model, the study measures and empirically tests the spatial effects of geopolitical risk and its changes on China's OFDI in 27 African countries. The key findings are as follows: (1) Between 2010 and 2021, geopolitical risks in various dimensions and the overall geo-setting of the 27 African countries experienced slight increases, exhibiting alternating changes, notable country-specific differences, a flattening of risk patterns, with political risk being the primary source. (2) There is evident spatial heterogeneity and mismatch between the host countries' geopolitical risks and China's OFDI. China's direct investment in the 27 African countries has not decreased or shifted due to higher geopolitical risks, demonstrating strong temporal and spatial inertia. Investment flows and stocks alternate between aggregation and dispersion, with varying country-level patterns. (3) An increase in the host country's geopolitical risks significantly reduces China's OFDI stocks and flows, but simultaneously promotes direct investment in neighboring and geopolitically linked countries. The direct effects and spatial spillover effects of geo-setting risks in different dimensions and elements on the OFDI stock and flow of the investor country vary considerably. (4) Control variables exhibit direct effects and spatial spillover effects. The reduction in bilateral geographical distance, the strengthening of political and diplomatic relations, responses to each other's geopolitical strategies, and an increase in investment dependence facilitate the attraction of China's OFDI in both the host country and its neighboring regions. The paper concludes by discussing the study's quantitative contributions to the understanding of geo-setting, as well as future research directions and policy recommendations.

The rapid and intricate evolution of socio-culture poses critical challenges to the development of cultural geography. Currently, tourism has emerged as a crucial cultural phenomenon; however, it has long been neglected by the academic community. This paper, grounded in the tension between reality and theory, addresses the necessity of tourism research within cultural geography and the specific nature of such research required. Its aim is to stimulate the development of cultural geography through interdisciplinary dialogue. This study reviews the current status and trends of tourism-related research within the realm of cultural geography, both domestically and internationally. It then examines the "newness" of tourism culture from two approaches: the spatial study of culture and the cultural study of space. At the ontological and epistemological levels, the paper discusses the following aspects: (1) Tourism has become an omnipresent cultural fact, providing a continuous and vivid empirical foundation for cultural geography research; (2) As a distinctive phenomenon, tourism has opened up frontier topics that facilitate the contextual application and perspective shift of theories; (3) Tourism, functioning as an intersecting "interface", links multidisciplinary thinking and offers platforms and experiences for interdisciplinary integration; (4) Tourism, as a "metaphor", indicates a new cultural perspective that transcends traditional cultural geography research, presenting a dynamic of integration, development, and anti-structuralism. This paper advocates for the cultural geography community to re-evaluate tourism, reversing the past neglect of tourism-related research and thereby fostering equitable interdisciplinary communication and academic innovation.

As the pace of life accelerates and the demand for tourism quality increases, slow tourism, which emphasizes experiences, relaxation, and sustainability, has emerged. However, slow-tourism behaviors and perceptions differ widely across different urban contexts. We applied the basic framework of landscape perception theory to popular Citywalk routes in Chengdu, Wuhan, and Shanghai, which were obtained from the Xiaohongshu platform. By integrating spatial, multimodal data, and content analyses, as well as other methods, we explored the spatial behavioral patterns, perceptual differences, and the associated mechanisms of tourists during Citywalk activities in different urban contexts. The findings indicate that Citywalk activities mainly occurred within the second rings of cities, representing small-scale urban exploration that emphasizes experiential feelings over conventional mobile tourism. Tourists preferred culturally and artistically vibrant urban destinations. Citywalks are generally free, thereby embodying a subcultural phenomenon that contrasts with the stressful rhythm of life emitomized by "involution" and "996" work culture. Notable differences in cognitive imagery, emotional imagery, and cultural perception were present among the tourists in different cities, which shaped unique urban Citywalk tourism experiences. Based on different models and perceptual differences, Chengdu's Citywalk was defined as "a slow city tour centered around creative cultural districts that blends creative spaces and gourmet exploration," whereas those in Wuhan and Shanghai were defined as "a slow city tour centered around historical architecture, that blends cultural spaces and natural scenery" and "a slow city tour centered around urban landscapes that blends humanities, arts, and modern fashion," respectively. Differing geographical locations, planning concepts, development orientations, and historical backgrounds affected the Citywalk tourism experiences by influencing aspects such as the natural environment, spatial layout, developmental direction, and cultural characteristics of each city, which created different place perceptions. Geographical location affects the natural environment, tourism facilities, and cultural atmosphere of a city, whereas planning concepts influence urban spatial layouts, functional zoning, and the mode of tourism resource development, which affect the form and experiences in slow tourism. Development orientation determines the development direction of a city, thereby crafting unique attractions. Differing historical backgrounds create distinct urban cultural features, lifestyles, and tourism resources, which affect the direction of slow-tourism development. The findings of this study present the differences in Citywalk behaviors and perceptions in various urban contexts, filling a gap in comparative studies of cities within slow-tourism scenes. The findings also provide a new theoretical perspective for understanding the interactions between tourism behavior and urban spaces and offers reference experiences for other cities to develop slow tourism, enhance urban cultural tourism competitiveness, and promote sustainable urban tourism development.

City serves as a medium for communication and, in turn, reshapes the city. Since the 21^st century, social media has rapidly spread worldwide, providing users with a platform for self-presentation and channels for expression. This has greatly changed people's lives and exerted a substantial influence on the reconstruction and gentrification of urban social spaces. However, few studies have focused on the underlying mechanisms. To gain a deeper understanding of the role of social media in commercial gentrification, Nantai Alley, a renowned Internet-famous block in Nanjing, was selected as a case study, and Xiaohongshu (Red note), whose main active user group is young women, was chosen to represent social media. This study conducted an in-depth analysis of the occurrence process, formation mechanism, and comprehensive effects of commercial gentrification under social media intervention. The research found that social media is deeply involved in the commercial gentrification process and continuously promotes the gentrification process through media information dissemination. Social media involvement in commercial gentrification is mainly achieved through two types of entities: merchants and consumers. On the one hand, social media provides merchants with replicable Internet celebrity aesthetics and business models and serves as a platform for self-marketing, increasing the probability of occurrence and promoting a more simplified and rapidly evolving trend of gentrification. On the other hand, consumers, engage in trendy check-ins and act as "discourse investors," accelerating commercial gentrification. Social media's representation of urban space amplifies and reinforces commercial gentrification; the progression and outcomes of gentrification are magnified on social media, occupying its central discursive spaces, whereas the daily lives and consumption practices of local residents are marginalized and rendered invisible in these digital representations. Furthermore, the profit-driven behaviors of certain local residents have laid the groundwork for gentrification, and the government has further consolidated the achievements of gentrification through urban renewal plans. The comprehensive effects triggered by commercial gentrification present significant dual characteristics: it exerts positive effects, such as commercial revitalization and beautification of the built environment, while also generating negative impacts, such as commercial exclusion, displacement, and cultural distinction from the neighborhood. Therefore, in future urban renewal processes, it is imperative for the government to intervene in a timely manner to preserve the community's original public value orientation and sense of place. This study enriches research on gentrification in the digital age by incorporating the factor of social media, and provides references for the renewal and management of urban space in the context of stock development.

In the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models (LLMs) have become important informational mediators through which the public perceives urban spaces, and AI discourse has emerged as a powerful force in the construction of urban spaces. Using Guangzhou as a case study, we categorized urban consumption spaces into four types: shopping spaces, catering and entertainment spaces, tourism and leisure spaces, and residential and commercial housing. We constructed an evaluation question set for hallucinations in urban consumption spaces within a discourse-power framework and used hallucination tests to examine the commonalities and differences between Chinese and international AI models, namely, DeepSeek and ChatGPT, in the production of spatial discourse, thereby explaining how AI hallucination discourse constructs urban consumption spaces. The main findings of this study are as follows. (1) In the hallucination tests of urban consumption spaces, ChatGPT exhibited lower hallucination rates than DeepSeek at both the overall level and across individual categories. Residential and commercial housing emerged as high-incidence domains of hallucinations for both AI models, whereas the most pronounced divergence in hallucination rates between the two models occurred in tourism and leisure spaces. The primary sources of AI-generated content, in descending order, were news media, individual or commercial institutions, government agencies, and online encyclopedias. Both models tend to respond to mainstream spatial discourses, demonstrating a limited capacity for revealing the complex, diverse, and contradictory realities of the city. Specifically, ChatGPT favors generalized frameworks in its depiction of urban consumption spaces, whereas DeepSeek's spatial narratives display a planning-oriented logic aligned with urban development strategies. (2) By integrating and reproducing specific discourses originating from governments, news media, and commercial institutions, AI discourse operates as a novel power subject that constructs multiple "realities" and promotes the production of meanings attached to consumption centers, symbolization of architectural landscapes, and technologization of consumption spaces and also adjudicates spatial value, allowing its power to operate in a "rational" manner. (3) The AI hallucination discourse constructs space by producing subject positions tailored to users, such as "supporters of urban development," "experience-oriented consumers," "beneficiaries of technological progress," and "astute investors." As users identify with and accept these positions, they enact specific consumption-space practices grounded in particular forms of knowledge, generating new data that are subsequently mobilized to reproduce the same discursive system. In this process, a specific knowledge regime is sustained, and power continues to operate. From a discourse-power perspective, this study elucidates the pathways through which urban consumption spaces are constructed by AI in the era of artificial intelligence. Although, it advances our understanding of the modes and impacts of urban knowledge circulation amid the rise of generative AI, critical reflection on the discursive and power relations embedded in technological products contributes to ethical scrutiny of smart city practices.