Study on Population Distribution Characteristics and Pattern Based on RS and GIS in Mountainous Region: A Case Study of Tianshui District, China

Study on population distribution characteristics and regulations have realistic meanings for harmonizing human-land relationship, managing scientifically population, resources and environments. Improvements in remote sensing (RS) technologies and the use of geographic information system (GIS) are increasingly allowing us to probe into population distribution at multiple scales. This paper researches population distribution characteristics and regulations in hill and mountainous region based on village scale using GIS and RS, to take Tianshui district as an example. It is found that population distribution is provided with obvious dispersion and diversity specialty in hill and mountainous region there agriculture production is dominant. In 7915 spots being composed of towns, villages and settlements, less spots with 1.0-10 hm2 acreage account for 84.7%, this indicates dispersive and small scale villages are still primary form of population distribution. The relationships among population density and land-use proportion of villages, spot number on unit acreage and spot size are analyzed by non- linearity function, some characteristics and pattern in population distribution may be revealed well. Population distribution of Tianshui represents obviously three categories: river valley area with high density, hilly area with medium density and mountainous area with low density. Labour radii and distance among villages existed huge difference in three categories.