The Characteristics and Influencing Factors of a Tourism, Cultural, and Ecological Space Network in the Yellow River Basin

The coordinated advancement of cultural, tourism and ecological industry construction is of great significance to the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Based on culture-tourism-ecology panel data of the nine provinces and autonomous regions in the Yellow River Basin from 2012 to 2022, a modified coupling model was constructed using the entropy method to measure the development levels of culture, tourism, and ecology across the provinces and autonomous regions in the basin. Separately, the modified gravity model, social network analysis, and Dynamic QAP were employed to examine the structural characteristics and influencing factors of the spatial correlation network. The results show that from 2012 to 2022, the development levels of culture, tourism and ecology in the Yellow River Basin have trended upward with fluctuations, with the relative development levels being ecology>culture>tourism, and the comprehensive development has spatial heterogeneity. Regionally, the coupling coordination degree follows a clear spatial pattern that is generally higher in the east and south, and lower in the west and north of the basin. The spatial correlation network within the Yellow River Basin is growing in density and complexity, and it is characterized by multi-threaded interconnections. Shanxi Province occupies a central position in this network, as it maintains strong linkages with other provinces, while Sichuan Province is in a marginal position in the network and has weak connections with other provinces. Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Gansu and Sichuan are “central provinces” in the spatial correlation network, and they are controlling and influencing the external radiation and spatial spillover of culture, tourism and ecology in the basin, while Qinghai and Ningxia are relatively marginalized. Among the factors influencing the spatial network structure, spatial adjacency and economic development level have significant impacts. Infrastructure differences have changed from being “irrelevant” to being “important drivers”. Differences in human capital and government macro-control have changed from marginally significant to having no impact.