Valley Economy Regionalization Based on Geographical Information System and Statistical Analysis: A Case of Beijing Mountainous Area

This paper discussed the regionalization of valley economy of the mountainous area of Beijing. 19 indexes of natural ecological and socio-economic systems were covered,and valley were considered as complete individual taxons. The mountainous area of Beijing was divided into 4 valley economic regions : Shallow mountain, plain grain and vegetable production area (I), Plain premier, special and high quality varieties planting area (II), Remote mountains forest conservation zone (III), Suburban Hilly Area and Remote Mountains ,water source protection and forestry product planting area (IV) valley economic regions by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA) combining with Geographical Information System (GIS) platform. These 4 regions were further divided into 12 valley economic types. The conclusion analyzed the regionalization and methodological framework for large scale areas like the mountainous area of Beijing. Such practice could be generalized to develop appropriate regional valley economic theory for large scale areas.