Linpan in Chengdu Plain

A farmhouse in Chengdu Plain.

The Linpan in Chengdu Plain is a special settlement in Chengdu Plain, Sichuan, China, which consists of farm house with woods around, irrigation system, farm land and is elementary unit of the village within the scattered locations. The rural landscape of Chengdu Plain is beautiful and unique because of the typical element "Linpan".[1] The production, life and landscape features set in one of the rural settlement pattern that is formed with the history, which is in line with local rural living environment commonly known as "Linpan Settlement in Chengdu Plain".

Introduction

The LinPan in Chengdu Plain, as a principle rusticity landscape in the Chengdu Plain might be define as a complex habitation mode. Generalized Linpan in Chengdu Plain refers to the Linpan Settlement system in the region of Chengdu Plain, also known as Linpan settlement. Moreover, LinPan in Chengdu Plain are the representative of farming type in western Sichuan that combine production and daily life in one landscape. It is understood that the cores of Linpan in Chengdu plain are trees and bamboo, but the main inscapes of this landscape are water, houses and fields, including any kinds of natural and artificial elements. It is usually inhabited by surname or clan as settlement units showing the layout in a decentralized manner and in the form of a typical natural villages. Small-scale Linpan generally have only a few dozen peasant families, however large-scale Linpan may contain hundreds of households.

Linpan in Chengdu Plain originated during the Ancient Shu Civilization and formed in a long period of immigration, which has been thousands of years history. It is not only reflected in the local farming culture, but also is the crystallization of traditional farming civilization era. The Linpan Settlement system coordinates with local farming conditions, traditional farming behavior and living life, and plays a crucial role in preserving the environment of Chengdu Plain.[2] Furthermore, it has society, culture, aesthetic and ecology value and make the rural landscape of Chengdu Plain different from the other area of China. The key reasons that it came into being, can be analyzed as natural environment, farm culture, the history of immigration, society culture.[3]

The rural landscape of Chengdu can be described as patches(the vast plain of farm land ), corridors(roads and irrigation Canals ), and matrixes(small matrixes are thousands of Linpans, big ones are towns). Linpan is the key element that make Chengdu rural landscape unique.[1]

Features

Culture

Linpan Settlement in Chengdu Plain inherited Chinese traditional farming culture and has a farming history for thousands of years, but it also has its own characteristics. Sichuan is a historic and typical region of traditional intensive farming culture in China, while the Chengdu Plain, is an important place of origin and development of this culture. Chengdu Plain provides the requisite conditions for the continuation and development of the farming culture, such as pleasant environmental conditions, warm and humid climate, abundant water and fertile land.

In the second place, Linpan in Chengdu Plain combines the Dujiangyan irrigation system, agricultural production, family system and lifestyle, that integrates the daily life in Chengdu Plain, production and ecological environment. It is a perfect combined spatial form of cultural symbol and use value. Linpan in Chengdu Plain formed as the basis of millennial Dujiangyan irrigation works, which solved the decisive factor, water, for the farming culture development. Formed a pattern of ecological farming, which regard Dujiangyan irrigation system as its core, Chengdu plain as its hinterland and Longquan Range as its protective screen. The intensive Linpan Settlements, fully reflects the farming culture which has the Sichuan water cultural characteristic.

Ecology

Chengdu Plain irrigated by the Dujiangyan irrigation system is a semi-natural wetland ecosystems. It provides a habitat for birds, but also provides a food base and living space for human beings. The symbiosis of people and woods even more continues today. The mainly landscape elements in this living environment are fields, woods, farmhouse and water and these four main elements are harmony and interdependence：

Form

The whole Linpan setllement in Chengdu Plain that lies between the cities and towns as roads crisscross, coupled with the water-intensive. It is in space to form a "checkerboard" pattern, such a network, which distributed a number of scattered Linpan landscape units.[4] Linpan Settlement generally based on single-family or family group as a unit, scattered among the field.

In terms of shape it is characterized by small-scale and recognizability. The scale of the farm village in Chengdu Plain is very small. The radius of the buildings, surrounding courtyards and bamboos always within 30 meters. This kind of compact small village has a strong identifiable and easy for people to grasp farming activities.

Distribution of Linpan

Linpan Settlement mainly distributed in the Chengdu Plain, however, Chengdu Plain belongs to the Sichuan Basin. Sichuan Basin is one of the famous big basin in china, whose terrain is relatively inaccessible. It is surrounded by 1000–2000 meters above sea level mountain, one of the few mountain up to an altitude of 3000–4000 meters. Basin covers an area of about 170,000 square kilometers, mostly in elevation between 300–700 meters.

The Chengdu Plain covers an area of about 23,000 square kilometers and is the largest plain in southwestern China. It lies on the marginal region of the Sichuan Basin and rivers from the high mountains to the north and west brings soil and water supply to the vast land.[5] The Chengdu Plain located among Longquan range, Longmen Mountains and Qionglai Mountains.[3] The great Minjiang River, together with its tributaries, runs across the Chengdu Plain to form an expansive water network.[5] Because the formation of factors, Linpan mainly distributed in flat terrain area, that the most typical ones are in Chengdu Plain. In addition to Sichuan in China's western provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and other places also have distribution.

The typical Linpan Settlements mainly distributed in 14 districts(cities) of Chengdu Plain are Longquanyi District, Pi County, Wenjiang District, Shuangliu District, Xindu District, Qingbaijiang District, Dayi County, Xinjin County, Jintang County, Pujiang County, Dujiangyan City, Pengzhou, Chongzhou City, Qionglai City,covers an area of 11,711 square kilometers. According to statistics, Linpan in Chengdu Plain demonstrate a wide distribution (area of 9482 square kilometers). a total of 141,100 existing Linpan, Linpan total area of 67,679.87 hectares, the population living within Linpan 449.03 million, accounting for 41.50 percent of the total population of the city region, representing the city 77.09% of the total rural population; Linpan per capita area of 150 square meters. The number of existing Linpan is around 141,100, with a total area of 67,679.87 hectares. The resident population of Linpan in Chengdu is about 449.03 million, accounting for 41.50% of the total population of the city region and 77.09% of the city total rural population.[6]

Types of Linpan Settlement

Farming Type

This type of Linpan settlement mainly focus on agricultural production. The vegetation and buildings in this kind of Linpan Settlement should harmonize with the fields, and it is the ecological residence of the rural population who engaged in agricultural activities. It is also the typical vector, which is the symbiosis of people, fields, buildings, woods and water. There are some unique spatial features of the farming Linpan, which provide spaces for drying cereals and corn, stacking farming tools, intensively-reared livestock and etc. These characteristics are reflected that in this kind of Linpan settlement farming as the main mode of industrial structure.

Ecological Type

With the change of time, social development, improvement of living standards and the progress of rural-urban integration, at the same time Linpan also changing.The villagers no longer satisfied with living a life of self-sufficient farming, they move to the urban area from Linpan Settlement, that causing some empty linpan Settlements. The role of these "Empty Linpan" is no longer for living, but has transformed to the ecological Linpan which has a ecological function for preserving the local environment.

Rural Tourism Type

At present, the rapid population growth led to urban sprawl and dwindling agricultural land resources. rural tourism as a compound of agricultural production and economic activities has become more and more popular. Thus, Rural Tourism type of Linpan emerged in Chengdu Plain. This type of Linpan mostly located in suburban areas, relying on agricultural production and make full use of the environment and transport advantages to develop rural inn and farmhouse catering services.It not only can satisfy local people's production and living needs, but also provide a tourism and vacation place for urban residents.

Specific Industrial Type

The main function of agricultural and forest land in specific industrial Linpan is production. Generally, the in the requirements of landscape aesthetic is less than the other types of Linpan. This type of Linpan create the multiple agricultural eco-landscape. This kind of Linpan make use of the traditional specific industry and enhance it, such as anti-season greenhouse vegetables and fruits, courtyard economy, livestock raising and other specific industries.

The Threaten of Linpan in Chengdu Plain

With the implementation of changes in land use policies and urban-rural integration in China, most households are grouped together as a group-type settlement during the new rural construction. The original distribution of Linpan formula has been greatly affected by the construction practices of farmers and the government, and the distance between farmers and land is also pulled away. Many factors can cause the number of Linpan Settlement dwindle. On one hand, many Linpan Settlement were removed or merged into a larger one. On the other hand, with the increasing number of part of the Linpan dwellers drift into cities, many Linpan Settlements are lack of management and change to be “Hollow Linpan”. All of these lead the number of Linpan Settlement decreasing each year. Pi County, a country near Chengdu, had more than 11,000 Linpan Settlement while there only has 8,000 now. A recent survey shows that the number of Linpan which holds more than 10 households living in is less than 900.[2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Yang, Qingjuan; Li, Bei; Li, Kui (2011). "The Rural Landscape Research in Chengdu's Urban-rural Intergration Development". Procedia Engineering. 21 (1): 780–788.
  2. 1 2 Fan, Yanzhi (2009). 川西林盘环境景观保护性规划设计研究 (MSc). Sichuan Agricultural University.
  3. 1 2 Duang, Peng; Liu, Tianhou (2004). 林盘: 蜀文化之生态家园 [Linpan: The ecological homeland of Shu culture] (Di 1 ban. ed.). Chengdu: Sichuan Science Technology Press. ISBN 7-5364-5577-1.
  4. ↑ Zhao, Rongming (2006). 成都城市边缘区乡村聚落规划设计面临的问题与对策研究 (MSc). Southwest Jiaotong University.
  5. 1 2 "What makes Chengdu the Land of Abundance". GO CHENGDU. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  6. ↑ Chengdu, Urban and Rual Construction Commission (2007). "成都编制规划保护川西林盘风貌". Urban Planning Newsreport. 17: 8–9.

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.