Traditional Urban Form and Evolutionary Mechanisms - Quanzhou and Malacca

Abstract

Ever since the days of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, as a result of the cultural interaction between China and Southeast Asia, the urban morphological evolution of port cities in these regions has always been relatively diverse and inclusive. This paper considers two typical traditional port cities, Quanzhou and Malacca, as research objects, analysing and comparing their morphological characteristics from the different urban evolutionary periods. Due to the morphological analysis, two categories of urban mechanisms that promote the urban evolution of port cities in different historical periods including both the local and the foreign influencing mechanisms can be summarised and scrutinised deeply. This paper concludes that Quanzhou and Malacca represent two important urban evolutionary modes on the Maritime Silk Road, the self- assimilation mode and the transplantation mode.