Analysis on the Correlation between Economic Development and Changes of Land Use Structure in Harbin

Land is one of the most important productive factors for people's survival and development, the demand for land aroused by rapid economic development is bound to cause the changes in the structure of land use. Take Harbin city as an example, the changing features of economic development and land use structure between 1999-2008 were analyzed, and Pearson correlation coefficient was used to measure the correlation between economic development and dynamic changes of land use structure. The results show that changes in the number of cultivated land had no significant correlationship with per capita GDP that reflects the level of economic development. While, of the construction land, the changes in the residential and industrial land, as well as transportation land took on significant positive correlation with per capita GDP and the proportion of the secondary industry, and all the correlation coefficients were greater than 0.9 and reached the confidence level of 0.01. Through this study, we can achieve the optimal allocation of land resources, thereby promote sustained and healthy economic development in Harbin.