A Study on the Spatial Structure and Its Cultural Factors in Pingyao, China

Because of the rapid development of heritage tourism, heritage conservation is receiving increasing national and international attention, albeit most of it is concerned with personal structures rather than space conservation. The first step in conserving the heritage, especially in a historic city’s environment, is to identify the social and cultural factors that have generated the changes. The Ancient City of Pingyao in China comprehensively reflects the traditional city planning of the Han people throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Furthermore, in the second half of the 19th century, as the center of banking in China, Shanxi merchants in Pingyao had a profound effect on the modern economic development of the country. Meanwhile, the spatial has been affected by the commercials. In this article, to clarify the associativity between cultural factors and spatial structure, researchers studied the development of Shanxi merchants and the modification of Pingyao’s spatial structure with the analysis of profundity logic and social factors. By analyzing the data from ArcGIS, this paper found that cultural heritage is a living entity, the result of the change, a dynamic pattern, and an evolving inter-relationship between history and culture, which allows cultural heritage to present a unique characteristic. Accordingly, for sustainable heritage tourism, the authors argue that it is necessary to refer to the traditional cultural factors and sociocultural requirements that influenced the spatial shape and consequently propose planning measures for improvement rather than simply studying the spatial structure.