Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Yangtze River Basin: Its Spatial Distribution Characteristics and Influencing Factors

Abstract

The intangible cultural heritage in the Yangtze River Basin is rich and complete, therefore revealing its spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors can provide a scientific basis for the diversified cultural protection and inheritance in the Yangtze River Basin and the high-quality sustainable development of the region. This study sets a total of 1250 national intangible cultural heritage from the first batch to the fifth batch in 11 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions which the main stream of the Yangtze River flows through as the research object. The results are visually expressed using ArcGIS spatial analysis technology in combination with the geographic concentration index, nearest neighbor index, kernel density analysis, geographical detector, and the like, which are as follows: (1) The Yangtze River Basin is a highly concentrated area for all categories of intangible cultural heritage in China. There is little difference in the overall distribution of intangible cultural heritage in the eastern, central, and western parts, but it differs a lot between different provincial areas. (2) The overall and different types of intangible cultural heritage in the Yangtze River Basin shows differentiated agglomeration characteristics, with the overall distribution structure of the “six cores and one belt”; from the perspective of types, intangible cultural heritages of traditional craftsmanship, traditional drama, folklore, folk literature, and traditional dance have obvious agglomeration; intangible cultural heritages of traditional medicine and traditional fine arts have little agglomeration; intangible cultural heritages of traditional sports, entertainment, and acrobatics are sparsely distributed, and have the least agglomeration. (3) Human and social factors are the primary factors that affect the spatial and temporal distribution of intangible cultural heritage in the Yangtze River Basin, followed by natural geographical factors, and the policy environment.