Formation mechanism and spatial pattern of urban agglomeration in central Jilin of China

Urban agglomeration is made up of cities with different sizes to be linked by traffic network in a given area, and it is an inevitable result when urbanization reaches a certain level. Taking urban agglomeration in central Jilin (UACJ) as an example, this article analyzes the formation mechanism and spatial pattern of urban agglomeration in the less-developed area. First, the dynamics of UACJ has been analyzed from the aspects of geographical condition, economic foundation, policy background, and traffic condition. Then the development process is divided into three stages—single city, city group and city cluster. Secondly, the central cities are identified from the aspects of city centrality, and the development axes are classified based on economic communication capacity. Finally, the urban agglomeration is divided into five urban economic regions in order to establish the reasonable distribution of industries.