Journal Article

The Spatial Relationship and Evolution of World Cultural Heritage Sites and Neighbouring Towns

Li, Wei, Yang, Ruixia, Liang, Yongqi, Xie, Yihan, Chen, Fulong

2022

Overview

The past few decades have witnessed unprecedented global urbanisation, with direct or indirect impacts on global cultural heritage sites. Research on the spatial relationship between cultural heritage sites and urban areas has provided a new perspective for understanding the impact processes between them, which have previously been discussed at the regional scale. In this article, we analyse the spatial relationship between world cultural heritage sites and neighbouring towns through systematic observations at the global scale and attempt to model change processes and identify impact mechanisms. We adopt spatial analysis and spatial statistics to analyse the changing characteristics of the spatial relationship between world cultural heritage sites and neighbouring towns from 1990 to 2018 and to analyse the impact processes at different spatial and temporal scales by combining indicators, such as income levels and urbanisation rates, at the national scale. The results show that 8.52% of world cultural heritage sites have been incorporated into urban areas over the aforementioned 28 years, with a certain aggregation in the spatial distribution of these sites, and that the growth rate can be divided into three phases, including two periods of rapid growth. The spatial relationship between towns and the 523 world cultural heritage sites that were previously located outside towns has not yet changed substantially, but the distances between most of the towns and these sites have been decreasing, with 81% of the world cultural heritage sites having a variation in distance from the corresponding town of 7.60 km or less. We also analysed the variation in distance between cultural heritage sites and neighbouring towns and found a relationship with indicators, such as the income level and urbanisation rate of the country to which a site belongs. Among the indicators, variation in national urbanisation rates most greatly affected the distance between heritage sites and towns. This study shows that world cultural heritage sites are affected by urbanisation and that particular attention should be given to the relationship between cultural heritage sites and neighbouring towns, especially in countries undergoing rapid urbanisation, so that the authenticity and integrity of cultural heritage are not compromised. This article provides a basis for development plans and policies in urban design, especially those that are sensitive to cultural heritage, and may also provide ideas and references for heritage conservation against the background of urbanisation.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Cultural heritage / Cultural resources / Datasets / Geographic information systems / Growth rate / heritage conservation / Historic sites / Impact analysis / Income / Indicators / Land area / Land settlement / Remote sensing / Spatial analysis / Spatial distribution / spatial relationship analysis / Statistical analysis / Sustainable development / Towns / Urban areas / Urban planning / Urbanization / Variation / world cultural heritage