Spatiotemporal patterns and county-level coordination between sports-related intangible cultural heritage and tourism development in the Wuling Mountain Area, China

Sports-related intangible cultural heritage (SRICH) can support culturally grounded tourism, but its county-level alignment with tourism development remains unclear in ethnically diverse mountain regions. This study examined 71 county-level units in China’s Wuling Mountain Area in 2010, 2015, 2019, and 2024. Geographical concentration, kernel density estimation, and standard deviational ellipses traced the administrative distribution of officially recognized SRICH records. Entropy weighting, coupling coordination, relative-balance diagnosis, and Moran’s I assessed their county-level relationship with tourism development. SRICH coverage expanded and geographical concentration declined, while county-represented density peaks increased within a broadly stable regional configuration. Tourism development rose rapidly before 2019 and more slowly thereafter, retaining a marked core–periphery structure. Mean D increased from 0.192 to 0.403; 62.2% of this change was associated with counties entering the official inventory after 2010. Within the baseline-covered cohort, the joint levels of the two subsystems increased, whereas relative balance changed little, and SRICH-lagging counties remained predominant. All three indices showed significant positive global spatial autocorrelation, while FDR-adjusted local clusters were sparse and none remained significant in 2024. The results inform differentiated cross-provincial safeguarding and tourism planning, with greater attention to counties where the two subsystems follow different trajectories. The coupling coordination degree D is interpreted as a comparative measure of the recorded joint levels of SRICH and tourism development.