Qianqian Zhao

Historic urban areas in inland resource-based cities are often reshaped by overlapping changes in roads, public services, industry, housing, and everyday land use. However, these changes are not always clearly connected to differentiated conservation and renewal decisions. Taking the Taiyuan historical urban area as a case, this study aims to clarify how multi-period historical spatial evidence can be used to interpret morphological evolution, road accessibility, land-use transformation, and their conservation-renewal implications. Standard deviational ellipse analysis, kernel density estimation, and space syntax were used to separately examine urban form, land-use concentration, and road-network accessibility. Taiyuan changed from a compact walled city into a complex urban structure involving internal infill, local extension, and functional reorganization. The historical core retained its importance for commercial services, public administration, and highly accessible streets. New clusters appeared near peripheral transport nodes and residential expansion areas. The road network became more regular and better connected. Land use shifted from residential-administrative embeddedness to a differentiated pattern. Based on the three lines of evidence, four conservation-renewal zones are identified: key conservation, fabric repair, adaptive reuse, and coordinated renewal. Beyond the Taiyuan case, the study provides a case-based approach for linking historical map translation, HGIS analysis, and conservation-renewal zoning in inland historic urban areas.

Railway construction and industrialization played an important role in reshaping the urban morphology of inland resource-based cities in Republican-period China. Taking Taiyuan during 1912–1937 as a case study, this paper examines the spatial association between railway corridors and industrial locations and discusses how this relationship contributed to the reorganization of urban space. Historical maps, railway maps, local gazetteers, archival materials, and existing literature were integrated into a historical GIS database. Kernel density estimation, railway buffer analysis, mean-center analysis, and standard deviational ellipse analysis were used to reconstruct the staged evolution of industrial nodes and railway corridors. The results show that Taiyuan’s industrial space evolved from a scattered point-based pattern to a railway-oriented axial-belt layout and then to a polycentric industrial corridor. Industrial nodes gradually moved closer to railway lines, while the mean center of industrial distribution shifted from the traditional city toward railway-related industrial districts. The findings suggest that Taiyuan followed one possible railway–resource–industry pathway shaped by railway construction, resource endowments, provincial industrial policies, land conditions, and the inherited urban fabric. This study provides historical spatial evidence for identifying railway–industrial heritage corridors and understanding inland industrial urban form.