Page 93 - JCAU-5-4

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Cultural landscape characteristics and zoning of

traditional villages in Huizhou City

1
1
Jiaping Huang , Qihua Deng , Hao Liang , and Jin Tao *
1
2
1 College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou,
Guangdong Province, China
2 School of Architecture, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province,
China

Abstract
Traditional villages and cultural landscapes harbor rich historical information,
representing a crucial agricultural heritage. This systematic categorization of these
zones is essential for scientifically identifying their distinctive characteristics and
values, thereby focusing protection efforts effectively. This paper focuses on Huizhou
City, a typical multicultural area, examining its rich traditional villages and cultural
landscapes through a comprehensive index system covering four levels and 22
factors. To categorize the city’s diverse cultural landscape, K-means cluster analysis is
employed, resulting in the identification of five traditional village cultural landscape
zones, namely the northern mountain valley, the central plain of the Dongjiang
*Corresponding author: River basin, the south-central plain of the Xizhi River basin, the southern coastal
Jin Tao
(arjtao@scut.edu.cn) area, and the eastern mountainous hills. Each zone exhibits different spatial patterns
and landscape characteristics. While this paper offers a preliminary analysis, future
Citation: Huang, J., Deng, Q.,
Liang, H., & Tao, J. (2023). Cultural research should integrate advanced data analysis methods to comprehensively
landscape characteristics and examine the cultural landscape to guide dynamic protection strategies and facilitate
zoning of traditional villages in the adaptive reuse of traditional villages.
Huizhou City. Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism,
5(4): 1311.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1311 Keywords: Traditional village; Cultural landscape; K-means cluster analysis method;
Zoning; Huizhou City
Received: July 14, 2023
Accepted: August 30, 2023
Published Online: December 26,
2023 1. Introduction
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). China has a rich history as a traditional agricultural country, spanning ancient times,
This is an open-access article with thousands of years of farming shaping the landscapes of traditional villages scattered
distributed under the terms of the among mountains and rivers, each with unique characteristics. These ancient settlements
Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-Commercial 4.0 International serve as repositories of rich historical information. The formation of their cultural
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all landscape is a testament to the symbiotic relationship that has evolved over millennia
non-commercial use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, among human production, living practices, and the surrounding environment. This
provided the original work is intricate interplay stands out as the most vivid reflection of the regional characteristics
properly cited. of traditional villages among the many elements of their components (Li et al., 2020).
Publisher’s Note: AccScience Cultural landscape refers to the synthesis formed through the long-term integration of
Publishing remains neutral with natural and human factors within a certain region during a specific period (Gordon,
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional 2018). It undergoes continuous changes with human activities, creating connections
affiliations between people and their natural, cultural, and socio-economic environments. A cultural

Volume 5 Issue 4 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1311