Understanding the Dynamics of Urban Heritage: A Quantitative Analysis of Historic Districts Across China’s Rapid Urbanization

Understanding the spatial distribution and associated contextual factors of historic and cultural districts is essential for heritage conservation and land-based spatial planning. Previous studies have largely focused on site-level authenticity and development models, while national-scale quantitative analyses remain limited, particularly in the Chinese context. This study constructs a nationwide dataset of 1212 historic and cultural districts across 31 provincial-level regions in China and applies a GIS-based framework integrating Global Moran’s I, kernel density estimation, and standard deviation ellipse analysis. The results reveal significant spatial clustering broadly aligned with the Hu Huanyong Line, with high-density concentrations in major urban agglomerations such as the Yangtze River Delta and an overall orientation along an east–west axis at the national scale. Further analysis suggests that these spatial patterns are broadly consistent with natural geographic conditions and long-term historical–cultural contexts; river systems, dynastic capital construction, economic development, and population migration provide important interpretive backgrounds for understanding regional differentiation. By providing a national-scale quantitative characterization of designated historic and cultural districts, this study offers spatial evidence to support more differentiated, land-oriented conservation and spatial planning strategies and to facilitate comparable spatial-heritage analytics in other regions where designation lists exist.