Study of the Inherent Causes of Formation of Settlements Based on Satellite Map Observation

Abstract

According to legend, there are several settlements in the form of “Bagua” (also called the Eight Diagrams) in Guangdong Province of China. For a long time, the public propaganda and some scholars all consider that the construction of this type of settlement is an imitation of gossip, so-called Bagua of Tai Chi. Using satellite map observation technology, this study defined the preliminary concept of the settlements in the form of Bagua, collected the statistics of the quan-tity and location of these settlements, and gathered a description of the distribution and overall plane graph of them. Through graphic analysis and isomorphism method, it is found that iso-morphic relation exists in many ways between the distribution region of those settlements and their surrounding geographical environment.From our viewpoint, the form of Bagua is only the external appearance of the settlements, and there are more important inherent causes of formation for them. First of all it is the defense of floods, followed by the defense of human disasters, and last but not least it is the adaption to the forms of social organization. The formation of the settlements in the form of Bagua had an ap-parent cause of defending the natural and human disasters, and it adapted the forms of social or-ganization. Then in the development of these settlements, the influences of the Bagua of Tai Chi as well as feng shui are integrated. In nature, the purpose of settlement form is to create optimal living environment.