关键词: 珠江三角洲, 沙田地区, 传统聚落, 聚落类型, 演进机制

Abstract: Sandfield is an important type of rural landscape in China and it predominantly exists in the sea-land borders along the Pearl River Delta. Due to the unique water system and the lifestyles of those living along the water's edge, the traditional settlements in the Sandfield regions have developed unique spatial patterns that differ from those in Lingnan. In the current study, 810 traditional villages in the drainage basin of the Pearl River Delta were chosen based on the geographic information system (GIS) platform and analyzed from the perspectives of space type, space distribution and evolutionary processes based on the spatial distribution and historical data provided in satellite maps. 
　　Based on space morphology, it was found that the traditional settlements in the Sandfield regions can be divided into three types: distributed space, extending space and sheet-like space. With respect to the spatial distributions of the traditional settlements in the Sandfield regions, it was revealed the distributed settlements include some key areas and are located near the green island of the East China Sea on the north of Maning Watercourse in Foshan City. It was additionally revealed that extending settlements have relatively extensive distributions, basically cover most regions in Sandfield, and do not exhibit evident key areas. Sheet-like settlements exhibit some cores and they were found to be distributed near the border between Jiya Watercourse in Zhongshan City and Huashali Bridge. Among them, the extending type was found to account for more than 90 per cent and it plays the dominant role in the mainstream culture. Other types account for a small proportion.
　　Some progressive relationships were found among three types of morphological characteristics, where six obvious temporal evolution nodes and five spatial evolution layers (by superposition of spatial distribution information) were identified. Specifically, the temporal evolution nodes are: (1) Song and Yuan dynasties,  distributed type (A) of "ship houses"; (2) Ming Dynasty, belted extending type (B) of the boat settlements along rivers; (3) Qing Dynasty, extending type (B) of boathouse/riverside-grass housing settlements; (4) after liberation, extending type (B) of land settlements with river-and farmland-side grass houses; (5) 1960s, extending type (B) of land settlements under the “reconstruction of grass house into brick house” policy; and (6) 1990s, sheet-like (C) land settlements with a tide of waterside villas. The spatial evolution was found to include (1) overwater space, boat-water; (2) water-land space, farmland-waterside shack-boat water; (3) space along the water, farmland-grass house/Huangshao boat water; (4) waterside space, farmland-house and road-rivers; and (5) space away from the water, farmland-house road.
　　Three promotion mechanisms were found behind the settlement evolution in the Sandfield regions: the history geographic mechanism, fighting mechanism and differentiation mechanism. The history geographic mechanism represents the natural environmental basis for the formation of settlement in the Sandfield regions. The fighting mechanism represents the fight for survival that peoples in the Sandfield regions endured as a result of significant hardships in their pioneering work and their continual adaptation to nature and society. The differentiation mechanism refers to the process of continual differentiation between two unique cultural zoning systems: the Sandfields and farmland. Influenced by the three evolutionary mechanisms, the whole development process of the Sandfield regions exhibits remarkable ecological aesthetics and the values underpinning a survival ethos.

Key words: Pearl River Delta, Shatian, traditional settlement, spatial topology, evolution mechanisms