Spatial Patterns Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Cultural Resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park, China

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the spatial patterns characteristics of cultural resources within the Yellow River National Cultural Park in China. Therefore, this paper plans to use Arcgis-10.8 software to describe the spatial patterns of cultural resources within the Yellow River National Cultural Park and use Geographic detector tools to study the influence of physical geography and social and human factors on the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources. The results indicate that: (1) the cultural resources in the Yellow River National show a spatial distribution pattern that is dense in the east and sparse in the west; (2) the spatial patterns of cultural resources within the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park are clustered, and multiple high-density areas such as south of the Shanxi province, north of the North Henan and Middle Shaanxi have formed, and the area covered by intangible cultural heritage is larger than that of tangible cultural heritage; (3) cultural resources show a “triangular” spatial distribution pattern, intangible cultural heritage shows an “N” spatial distribution pattern, and tangible cultural heritage shows an inverted “V” spatial distribution structure; (4) the influence of a single factor on the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources is limited. The interaction of multiple factors can significantly improve explanation, and the landscape layout of cultural resources is the main factor affecting the spatial patterns of cultural resources.

1. Introduction

In 1872, Yellowstone was created in America, and the national park became the most widely used nature conservation and ecosystem-based management tool around the world [1]. National parks are built to protect special natural and geological features, wetland, lakeshore, riverside, coastline, flora and fauna, historical sites, ancient battlefields, architecture, monuments, aboriginal culture, and so on. In establishing national parks, developing countries often take social and economic development as their primary goal; they often neglect to transmit historical and cultural resources. On 29 October 2020, China released “Proposal of the CPC Central Committee on Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Visionary Goals for 2035” [2], proposing the construction of the Yellow River National Cultural Park. The Yellow River National Cultural Park is an important vehicle for the preservation of Chinese culture, which encompasses a wealth of cultural resources. Therefore, it has typical research significance in academic terms.

The creation of life and the beginning of civilization are both closely associated with water [3]. Around 5000 years ago, China, India, Egypt, the Mesopotamia valley, and the Mediterranean island of Crete entered civilization almost simultaneously. The four ancient civilizations were all born in the great river basins, which were suitable for agriculture, and their distinctive histories of civilizational development made up the splendid and glorious Great River Civilization, which made a great contribution to the progress of humanity as a whole. The relics distributed in the middle reaches of the Yellow River are emblematic of Chinese civilization [4]. From its roots, the Yellow River basin is the central birthplace of Chinese civilization. The establishment of the Yellow River National Cultural Park is an important initiative and means of preserving and transmitting the culture of the Yellow River. As a type of heritage site conservation with Chinese characteristics, it undertakes to transmit and protect the cultural heritage within the Yellow River basin. It is essential for all aspects of history, culture, economy, and society [5]. Regarding historical development, the Yellow River is the most important natural factor contributing to the pluralistic unity of the Chinese nation. From the perspective of cultural development, the Yellow River culture has led to the development of Chinese civilization, accumulating and passing on a rich collective memory of China. The National Cultural Park is both a major project to promote the cultural prosperity of China in the new era and an innovative contribution to the global community in the process of international interaction and localization practices for cultural heritage conservation in China. The spatial analysis and visual representation based on GIS technology are conducive to the study and promotion of the Yellow River civilization, enhance the world’s understanding of the Yellow River civilization, and play an important role in exploring the exchange and communication between civilizations worldwide. The preservation and transmission of historical and cultural resources is an eternal topic in the development process of human society. The strategic role of cultural heritage in national sustainable development is widely recognized by the United Nations, UNESCO, and others [6]. Cultural heritage embodies indigenous culture, values, and traditions inherited from previous generations [7]. As a set of tangible and intangible assets, cultural heritage can effectively enhance the economic strength and cultural influence of a region [8].

China is a large country of cultural resources, but due to the problems of unscientific development, unreasonable allocation, and simple and sloppy industrial development, the advantages of cultural resources are not sufficiently played. To develop, configure, and utilize traditional cultural resources well and to transform resource advantages into industrial advantages, their premise is to clarify the distribution pattern of resources. This study focuses on the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources within the Yellow River National Cultural Park, as well as the factors influencing this pattern. First, the Yellow River is critical notation of Chinese culture and has a rich intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and tangible cultural heritage, which are of typical research significance in academic terms; Second, at present, there are fewer studies on the Yellow River National Cultural Park that mainly focus on the concept, construction path, and the development of intangible cultural heritage in local areas. Third, there is a lack of research on the mapping and quantification of cultural resources; once again, the mapping and quantification of cultural resources have significant scientific and academic values for systematically sorting out cultural information and clarifying the spatial distribution of cultural resources. Finally, it helps deepen the theoretical research related to the Yellow River National Cultural Park and provides a reliable basis for promoting the protection, inheritance, and utilization of cultural resources in China, which have essential significance.

2. Literature Review

Research on the establishment of national parks has a long history, and since the first establishment of national parks in America, national parks have been sought after by various countries as a unique form of protected area, and current research on national parks has focused on ecological conservation in national parks [9,10,11,12,13], biodiversity studies in national parks [14,15,16], national park management policy [17,18,19], and studies of visitor intention behavior in national parks [20,21,22,23].

China started the establishment of national parks late. The National Cultural Park, which was first proposed by China, is the continuation and development of the concept of a national park presented by America in 1832 [24], essentially the same as the traditional concept of national parks but fully combined with Chinese characteristics in the specific establishment process. This concept is the product of the combination of Chinese cultural heritage protection thinking and international cultural relic protection concepts; it is a new concept put forward to solve the long-standing problems of “separation” and “Tragedy of the Commons” in the process of cultural heritage protection in China. Most of the current studies on national cultural parks in China focus on the origin of the concept of national cultural parks [25,26], tourism development and the protection of cultural resources in the context of national cultural parks [27,28,29], the logical following and construction path of national cultural park establishment [30,31], etc. The establishment of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park is an important grip to promote a strong cultural nation, and the integration of traditional culture and the spirit of the times should be emphasized during its construction [28]. As a major project under active construction in China, the Long March National Cultural Park should explore the cultural connotation of the Long March and develop creative products in depth [32]. However, the general supply quality of each scenic red spot along the Long March National Cultural Park is low, making it difficult to achieve high-quality development [33].

At present, international attention has been paid to the Yellow River basin, but studies on the Yellow River National Cultural Park are few; the studies focus more on intangible cultural heritage protection and development in local areas [34] or on a particular type of cultural resource for research [35]. There are more directions at the macro level, but there is a lack of specific practical research. It lacks an overall grasp of the whole planning area and cultural resources of the Yellow River National Cultural Park. Based on this, this paper takes 8 provinces within the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park as the research area, takes 844 intangible cultural heritage data(Including ten categories of folk literature, traditional music, traditional dance, traditional art, traditional drama, traditional sports, traditional arts, traditional medicine, traditional fine art, and folk customs) and 2020 tangible cultural heritage data (Including seven categories of historical and cultural town, historical and cultural village, national agricultural heritage, national industrial heritage, cultural relics protection unit, archaeological site park, and mine park) as the research objects, using spatial analysis methods to study the spatial patterns of cultural resources within the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park, and further uses the geographic detector model to study the factors affecting the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park, in order to provide a reference for the protection, inheritance, and utilization of cultural resources within the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park and supported theory.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Study Area and Data Source

The Yellow River, with a total length of approximately 5464 km, spans nine provinces and has a total basin area of approximately 795,000 square kilometers. There is no clear geographical boundary for the construction of the Yellow River National Cultural Park, but its construction relies on the nine provinces (Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong) along the Yellow River, which covers an area of approximately 2.6 million square kilometers, covering 90 city-level administrative units. Most studies were used to define the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park as eight province areas other than Sichuan Province and the northeastern part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region [36]. The Yellow River National Cultural Park in Sichuan Province covers only five counties and districts in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, with less available research data. Furthermore, studies tend to habitually classify Sichuan Province into the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The eastern four cities of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (Hulun Buir, Hinggan League, Chifeng and Tongliao), which belong to the northeast region geographically and were mostly listed in the northeast region in previous studies, are far from the main tributaries of the Yellow River and are less influenced by the Yellow River civilization. Therefore, this paper excludes the relevant data of Sichuan Province and the four cities in the eastern part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and selects other regions, except for these two administrative regions, as the research objects (Figure 1).

3.2. Research Methods

3.2.1. Nearest Neighbor Index

The nearest neighbor index (average nearest neighbor, ANN) determines the distance between the hub of the mass of each object point in a spatial cell and the hub of the mass of its nearest neighbor [37]. It is calculated by Equation (1):

$$\mathrm{R}=\frac{{\overline{\mathrm{r}}}_1}{{\overline{\mathrm{r}}}_{\mathrm{E}}}=2\sqrt{\mathrm{D}}\times {\overline{\mathrm{r}}}_1;{\overline{\mathrm{r}}}_{\mathrm{E}}=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{n}}{\mathrm{A}}}}=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{\mathrm{D}}}$$

(1)

where $\mathrm{R}$ is the nearest neighbor index; ${\overline{\mathrm{r}}}_1$ is the actual nearest neighbor distance; ${\overline{\mathrm{r}}}_{\mathrm{E}}$ is the theoretical nearest neighbor distance; n is the number of cultural resources; D is the point density. R = 1 means the cultural resources are in probability distribution mode; R < 1 means the cultural resources tend to be in aggregated distribution mode; R > 1 means the cultural resources tend to be in uniform distribution mode.

3.2.2. Standard Deviation Ellipse

The standard deviational ellipse (SDE) can analyze the spatial center of gravity and directional distribution of cultural resources. It can be used to analyze the spatial center of gravity and directional distribution patterns of cultural resources. By calculating the center of gravity of the distribution of the object points and constructing the axes of the ellipse, an ellipse containing the spatial distribution trend of cultural resources is obtained. The size of the ellipse area demonstrates the concentration of all the elements of the spatial patterns, the long semi-axis reflects the principal direction of the distribution of cultural resources, and the short axis manifests the distribution range of the cultural resources. This study uses first-order criteria to analyze the directional characteristics of cultural resources [38]. It is calculated by Equation (2):

$${\mathrm{SDE}}_{\mathrm{x}}=\sqrt{\frac{\sum _{\mathrm{i}=1}^{\mathrm{n}}{\left({\mathrm{x}}_{\mathrm{i}}-\overline{\mathrm{X}}\right)}^2}{\mathrm{n}},}{\mathrm{SDE}}_{\mathrm{y}}=\sqrt{\frac{\sum _{\mathrm{i}=1}^{\mathrm{n}}{\left({\mathrm{y}}_{\mathrm{i}}-\overline{\mathrm{Y}}\right)}^2}{\mathrm{n}}}$$

(2)

${\mathrm{SDE}}_{\mathrm{x}}$ and ${\mathrm{SDE}}_{\mathrm{y}}$ represent the standard deviation of the X-axis and Y-axis, respectively; ${\mathrm{x}}_{\mathrm{i}}$ and ${\mathrm{y}}_{\mathrm{i}}$ are the coordinates of cultural resource i, {$\overline{\mathrm{X}},$ $\overline{\mathrm{Y}}$} denotes the mean center of cultural resources, and $\mathrm{n}$ is the overall number of regional cultural resources.

3.2.3. Kernel Density

The kernel density estimation method can visually reflect the dispersion or clustering characteristics of point elements in geographic space and can reflect the degree of clustering of point elements. In this study, the kernel density of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park was analyzed to estimate and measure its spatial clustering characteristics. The greater the value of the kernel density, the higher the degree of the aggregation of cultural resources [39]. It is calculated by Equation (3):

$$\mathrm{f}\left(\mathrm{x}\right)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{nh}}\sum _{\mathrm{n}=1}^{\infty }\mathrm{K}\left(\frac{\mathrm{x}-{\mathrm{X}}_{\mathrm{i}}}{\mathrm{h}}\right)$$

(3)

$\mathrm{F}\left(\mathrm{x}\right)$ is the kernel density estimate; $\mathrm{n}$ is the number of cultural resources in the analysis range, and K(x) is called the kernel function; $\mathrm{h}$ is the bandwidth and $\mathrm{h}$ > 0; $(\mathrm{x}-{\mathrm{X}}_{\mathrm{i}}$) denotes the distance from the valuation $\mathrm{x}$ to the cultural resource point ${\mathrm{X}}_{\mathrm{i}}$.

3.2.4. Lorentz Curve and Centralization Index

The geographical concentration index is a vital index to evaluate the concentration of the research object, which is used to assess the spatial balance of cultural resources [40]. It is calculated by Equation (4):

$$\mathrm{G}=100\%\times \sqrt{\sum _{\mathrm{i}=1}^{\mathrm{n}}{\left[\frac{{\mathrm{X}}_{\mathrm{i}}}{\mathrm{T}}\right]}^2}$$

(4)

$\mathrm{N}$ is the number of regions, $\mathrm{T}$ is the total number of cultural resources, and ${\mathrm{X}}_{\mathrm{i}}$ is the number of cultural resources in the ith region. A larger $\mathrm{G}$ value indicates more concentrated spatial patterns; a smaller $\mathrm{G}$ value indicates more dispersed spatial patterns.

3.2.5. Imbalance Index

The imbalance index measures the equilibrium or completeness of research objects in different districts, reflecting the completeness or equilibrium of the distribution of research objects in different districts [40]. It is calculated by Equation (5):

$$\mathrm{S}=\frac{\sum _{\mathrm{i}=1}^{\mathrm{n}}{\mathrm{Y}}_{\mathrm{i}}-50(\mathrm{n}+1)}{100\mathrm{n}-50(\mathrm{n}+1)}$$

(5)

${\mathrm{Y}}_{\mathrm{i}}$ is the cumulative percentage of the number of cultural resources in each region ranked from the largest to the smallest in the whole region; $\mathrm{n}$ indicates the total number of regions. $\mathrm{S}$ is the imbalance index, which is between 0 and 1. The closer the value is to 1, the more unbalanced the distribution of cultural resources; the closer to 0, the more balanced the distribution of cultural resources.

3.2.6. Geographical Detectors

A geo-detector is used to analyze spatial differentiation and reveal the influences of factors. This study uses the geo-detector tool to analyze the factors influencing the spatial distribution of cultural resources [39].

(1) Factor detection. Factor detection is to detect the degree to which the influence factor X interprets the spatial variance of variable Y. It is calculated by Equation (6):$\mathrm{q}$ is the interpretation of influence factor X on the space of cultural resource density Y; N_h is the number of units within the detected element h; N is the number of study units; ${\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{h}}^2$ and σ² are the variances of the cultural resource density values of the detected element layer and the entire district unit, respectively.

$$\mathrm{q}=1-\frac{\sum _{\mathrm{h}=1}^{\mathrm{L}}{\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{n}}{\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{h}}^2}{\mathrm{n}{\mathsf{\sigma }}^2}$$

(6)

(2) Interaction detection. It is mainly utilized for assessing if the joint action of influence factor X enhances or weakens the spatial explanatory power of cultural resources Y. There are five main types of results: non-linearly weakening, unilinearly weakening, bilinearly enhancing, mutually independent, and non-linearly enhancing.

4. Results

4.1. Differences in the Number and Categories of Cultural Resources

According to the geographical orientation, this paper divides the eight provincial-level administrative regions within the Yellow River National Cultural Park into the western region (Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu), the middle region (Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi), and the eastern region (Henan and Shandong). Based on the statistics of the number of cultural resources, a total of 2864 items of data were obtained, including 844 items of intangible cultural heritage (

Table 1. Numbers and types of ICH in the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

Region	Province	Categories of the ICH
		Folk Literature	Traditional Music	Traditional Dance	Traditional Fine Art	Traditional Drama	Folk Art	Traditional Skills	Traditional Sports	Traditional Medicine	Folk Custom
West	Qinghai	9	15	9	11	3	4	11	3	6	17
	Gansu	7	12	11	8	11	7	12	1	2	12
	Ningxia	1	3	1	5	1	1	7	0	4	5
Middle	Inner Mongolia	4	14	2	7	4	0	8	6	4	12
	Shaanxi	7	15	6	12	18	8	12	2	2	9
	Shanxi	10	18	14	19	38	11	35	6	8	23
East	Henan	10	13	10	14	29	5	14	10	6	14
	Shandong	27	18	13	28	33	13	19	15	6	14

) and 2020 items of tangible cultural heritage (

Table 2. Numbers and types of tangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

Region	Province	Categories of Tangible Cultural Heritage
		Historical and Cultural Town	Historical and Cultural Village	National Agricultural Heritage	National Industrial Heritage	Cultural Relics Protection Unit	Archaeological Site Park	MinePark
West	Qinghai	1	5	0	2	50	0	1
	Gansu	8	5	4	4	150	0	3
	Ningxia	0	1	3	1	36	1	1
Middle	Inner Mongolia	2	2	4	0	68	0	0
	Shaanxi	7	3	5	9	269	4	1
	Shanxi	15	96	2	6	531	0	2
East	Henan	10	9	3	5	417	5	3
	Shandong	4	11	7	14	224	2	4

). In terms of the number of regions, the middle region contains the most, reaching 1463, accounting for 47.49%; The western region contains the least with only 491 items, accounting for 16.59%; There are a total of 1050 cultural resources in the eastern region, accounting for 35.93%. In terms of the difference in the number of provinces, Shanxi Province contains the most significant total of cultural resources with a total of 834, accounting for 29.120%. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region contains the smallest total number of cultural resources with a total of 71, accounting for only 2.479% (

Table 3. Numbers and types of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

Region	Province	Number of Resources	Proportion	Number of Regions	Proportion	Number of ICH	Proportion	Tangible Cultural Heritage	Proportion
West	Qinghai	147	5.133%	491	16.59%	88	10.427%	61	2.921%
	Gansu	257	8.973%			83	9.8347%	186	8.614%
	Ningxia	71	2.479%			28	3.318%	45	2.129%
Middle	Inner Mongolia	137	4.784%	1463	47.49%	61	7.2278%	157	3.762%
	Shaanxi	389	13.582%			91	10.782%	313	14.752%
	Shanxi	834	29.120%			182	21.564%	659	32.277%
East	Henan	577	20.147%	1050	35.93%	125	14.810%	464	22.376%
	Shandong	452	15.782%			186	22.038%	275	13.168%

). In addition, the number of tangible cultural heritage in Shanxi Province is much higher than in other provinces, among which the number of state-level cultural relic protection units accounts for a large proportion. The number of intangible cultural heritage items in Shandong Province and Shanxi Province is much greater than in other districts and twice the number of most central and western provinces.

4.2. The Type of Spatial Distribution of Cultural Resources

As seen in

Table 4. Nearest neighbor indexes of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

Type	Average Observation Distance	Predict the Average Distance	Nearest Neighbor Ratio	Z-Value	p-Value
Cultural Resources	6686.98	23,305.88	0.296	−72.151	0.000
Intangible Cultural Heritage	11713	39674	0.295	−39.168	0.000
Tangible Cultural Heritage	10724	27745	0.387	−52.770	0.000

, the mean observation distance of cultural resources is less than the predicted average distance, the nearest neighbor ratio R value is 0.296 < 1, and the Z score is −72.151. This indicates that the overall distribution of cultural resources is clustered. The nearest neighbor ratio of intangible cultural heritage and tangible cultural heritage was less than 1, and the confidence level was 99%, indicating that the type of spatial patterns of intangible cultural heritage and tangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River National Cultural Park belonged to the aggregation patterns, and the spatial distribution and aggregation degree of intangible cultural heritage was higher than that of material cultural resources.

4.3. Analysis of the Concentration of Cultural Resources

The geographical concentration index G of the spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park is 42.6784. If the cultural resources are evenly distributed in eight provincial administrative regions, the geographical concentration index G₀ should be 35.3553 and G > G₀, indicating that the cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park are clustered. This analysis is consistent with the type of spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park in an aggregated distribution.

4.4. Analysis of the Equilibrium of Cultural Resources

The cultural resources of each provincial administrative region were ranked from highest to lowest percentage of the total cultural resources of the Yellow River National Cultural Park. It was then substituted into Equation (5) together with the number of provincial districts to calculate the cultural resource imbalance index of 0.4275.

In order to objectively and comprehensively describe the balance of cultural resources, this paper applies the Lorentz curve to express it visually. In this paper, the proportion of cultural resources in the eight provincial-level administrative regions to the total number of cultural resources in the study area was calculated and arranged in descending order, and the cumulative percentage was used to plot the Lorentz curve (Figure 2). It can be seen from the Lorentz curve that the actual distribution of cultural resources is convex to the upper left corner and far away from the ideal uniform distribution line, which indicates that the spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park is uneven. The four provinces of Shanxi, Henan, Shandong and Shaanxi are the most concentrated, and their cultural resources account for more than 78% of the entire Yellow River National Cultural Park.

4.5. Analysis of Spatial Aggregation of Cultural Resources

4.5.1. Spatial Characteristics of Cultural Resources

Figure 3a shows the spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park, with the following characteristics: (1) The distribution of cultural resources shows a single high-density core area and several sub-density core areas. Among them, the high-density core area covers the “Golden Triangle” area of the south and central areas of Shanxi (Taiyuan, Jinzhong, Linfen, Yuncheng, Changzhi, Jincheng), Guanzhong (Xi’an, Xianyang), northern and Central Henan (Jiaozuo, Xinxiang, Zhengzhou, Luoyang), etc. The sub-density core areas are mainly Shandong (Tai’an, Jinan, Zibo), Henan (Hebi, Anyang), Qinghai (Haidong, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture), and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. (2) As far as the three regions of the western, central, and eastern regions of the Yellow River cultural park are concerned, the spatial distribution of cultural resources shows a contiguous cluster in the central and eastern regions; The western region is scattered and partially agglomerated. The cultural resources of the central region are mainly concentrated in the central and southern parts of the Shanxi and Guanzhong regions, the cultural resources in the eastern region are primarily concentrated in the northern part of North Henan, and the cultural resources in the western region are mainly concentrated in the eastern region of Qinghai Province. (3) Most of the cultural resources are concentrated in the cities of the agricultural civilization that are highly prosperous or the capital of feudal dynasties (such as Linfen in Shanxi, Luoyang in Henan, and Xi’an in Shaanxi) and areas with mixed ethnic groups (e.g., Qinghai Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Haidong City).

4.5.2. Spatial Characteristics of Intangible and Material Cultural Resources

(1) The spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage showed two high-density core areas and three sub-density core areas. The high-density core area is manifested as an N-shaped area covering the four provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong, and the areas with Xining City and the Haidong City of Qinghai as the core radiating Qingdong and Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, and the Lanzhou City of Gansu. The sub-density core areas are mainly Qingdao City in Shandong province, Yinchuan City in Ningxia, and Hohhot City in Inner Mongolia (Figure 3b). (2) The distribution of tangible cultural heritage showed one high-density core district and one sub-density core district of “Shanxi-Henan-Shaanxi provinces”. Among them, the high-density core district covers central and south of Shanxi, the middle of Shaanxi, and central and north in the Henan regions. The sub-density core area is mainly centered in Tai’an and Jining, Shandong (Figure 3c). (3) The distribution characteristics of intangible cultural heritage and tangible cultural heritage reflect the impact of human activity intensity on the distribution of cultural resources. Cultural resources tend to be concentrated in cities with developed economies and large populations such as Shandong Province and Henan Province.

4.5.3. Spatial Orientation Features

From the analysis of standard deviation ellipses, the standard deviation ellipses of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park have certain directional characteristics. As can be observed from Figure 4, the spatial direction of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park (the direction of the long axis of the standard deviation ellipse) is roughly east–west, which is roughly the same as the flow direction of the Yellow River, indicating that the spatial distribution of cultural resources is inseparable from the geographical environment. The elliptical area of cultural resources is 919,681.6 km², including most of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and eastern areas of Gansu and western areas of Shanxi, etc. The elliptical includes areas located in the Central Plains, developed water and land transportation, mainly, the capital of successive feudal dynasties with a long history and rich cultural heritage. The elliptical center of gravity of the standard deviation of cultural resources is located in Pinglu County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province (36.101° N, 111.382° E), located in the central area of the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

The long axis direction of the standard deviation ellipse of the intangible cultural heritage and the tangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River National Cultural Park is roughly east–west, indicating that the spatial distribution pattern of intangible cultural heritage has a strong coupling with tangible cultural heritage. According to

Table 5. Parameters of standard deviation ellipse for cultural resources units in the Yellow River Cultural Park.

Resource Category	Area/km2	Center of Gravity Coordinates	Long Half Axis/km	Short Half Axis/km	Rotation Angle θ
Total	919,681.60	36.101° N, 111.382° E (Pinglu County)	768.753	380.839	90.37
Intangible Cultural Heritage	1,162,466.50	36.290° N, 110.964° E (Lingshi County)	899.053	411.615	87.66
Tangible Cultural Heritage	809,259.60	36.022° N, 111.557° E (Yaodu District)	706.191	364.798	92.13

, the area of the intangible cultural heritage ellipse is 1,162,466.5 km², which is larger than the 809,259.6 km² of the ellipse of tangible cultural heritage, and the major and short semi-axes of the intangible cultural heritage ellipse are larger than the major and short semi-axes of the ellipse of tangible cultural heritage. It displays that intangible cultural heritage covers more regions than tangible cultural heritage. This feature further illustrates the impact of differences in cultural heritage and cultural types on different cultural resources. The elliptical center of gravity of the standard deviation of intangible cultural heritage is located in Lingshi County, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province (36.290° N, 110.964° E), and the standard deviation elliptical center of gravity of tangible cultural heritage is located in Yaodu District, Linfen City, Shanxi Province (36.022° N, 111.557° E), both of which fall in the central area of the Yellow River National Cultural Park, indicating that Shanxi Province should be the center district for the protection and development of the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

4.6. Influencing Actors of the Spatial Distribution of Cultural Resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park

This paper draws on traditional villages, cultural relics and monuments, and the other related literature and uses eight indicators elected from the physical geography and socio-economic dimensions as influencing factors affecting the spatial distribution characteristics of cultural resources within the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park. Physical geographic latitude indicators include elevation, slope, average temperature, river network density, etc. The socio-economic dimension includes the number of people in the region, regional GDP, road network density, number of scenic spots, etc. The Yellow River has nurtured thousands of years of agricultural civilization, which is deeply affected by the natural geographical environment, so we select natural geographical indicators such as precipitation, slope, and altitude closely related to agricultural production as natural factors affecting the spatial distribution of cultural resources. The prosperity of culture is inseparable from human activities; any culture is born and booms because of people, and human activities are the foundation of cultural prosperity. Therefore, this paper selects population, GDP, road network density, and other socio-economic indicators that can measure the intensity of human activities as social factors affecting the spatial distribution of cultural resources.

As seen from

Table 6. Influence factor detection indexes.

Dimension	Factor	Encode	Q-Value	p-Value
Geographical Environmental Factors	Elevation	X1	0.040	0.000
	Slope	X2	0.024	0.000
	Average Temperatures	X3	0.031	0.000
	River Network Density	X4	0.032	0.000
Social and Humanistic Factors	Number of People	X5	0.172	0.000
	GDP	X6	0.175	0.000
	Road Network Density	X7	0.132	0.000
	Number of Scenic Spots	X8	0.182	0.000

, the influence of socio-economic factors on the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources is more significant than that of physical geography. The number of A-class scenic spots, GDP, population, and road network density were the four most powerful driving factors, which indicated that socio-economy was the main reason for the formation of the spatial distribution characteristics of cultural resources. The factors of elevation, average temperature, and slope are less significant driving forces among the natural geographic latitude factors, which indicates that the influence of natural geographic factors on the distribution of cultural resources is weak.

4.6.1. Influence of Geographical Factors

In this paper, four factors were selected for evaluation, including annual average temperature, elevation, slope, and river network density. The Yellow River civilization is an agricultural civilization [41] that arose from agricultural production activities, and agricultural production is influenced by various aspects such as topographical conditions, water resource conditions, and temperature, so the favorable natural conditions are conducive to the breeding of civilization and have a positive effect on the gathering and distribution of cultural resources. As can be seen from Table 6, the effects of four factors on the spatial distribution of cultural resources are: altitude (0.040) > river network density (0.032) > average temperature (0.031) > slope (0.024), where altitude, river network density, and average temperature have greater effects on the distribution of cultural resources. Furthermore, the p-values of all four indicators are less than 0.05, indicating that elevation, river network density, slope, and average temperature are significantly related to the spatial distribution of cultural resources. As can be seen from Figure 5, cultural resources are mainly concentrated in areas with lower altitudes, such as Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other provinces. The number of cultural resources decreases with the increase in altitude, and the number of cultural resources is highest at an altitude of 1000–3000 m.

4.6.2. Influence of Socioeconomic Factors

Cultural resources come from human production and life, so human activities are the leading driving force for the generation and diffusion of cultural resources. The socio-economic dimension ranked the influence of the spatial distribution of cultural resources as follows: a number of scenic spots (0.182) > GDP (0.175) > population (0.172) > density of road network (0.132). The number of scenic spots among social and economic factors has the greatest impact on the spatial distribution of cultural resources, and the landscaping of cultural resources can make cultural resources better protected and developed. GDP and population in socio-economic factors have a great influence on the spatial distribution of cultural resources, and in the process of the formation and development of cultural resources, the level of economic level determines the intensity of capital investment in the process of protection and development of cultural resources and also indirectly affects the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources. No matter what kind of cultural resources, they are born and boom because of people, so the intensity of human activities is closely related to cultural resources. In general, areas with larger populations are more likely to produce cultural resources. The influence of transportation on the spatial distribution of cultural resources among socio-economic factors is relatively weak, and the transportation location conditions affect people’s living standards, the degree of dissemination of cultural resources, and the development and protection of cultural resources.

4.6.3. Traffic Buffer Analysis

Traffic factors largely determine the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources, and where various transportation routes converge, the higher the level of economic development and frequent cultural exchanges, and the stock of cultural resources is generally larger. In this paper, ArcGIS 10.8 was used to establish a buffer zone of 50 km expressway, national highway, railway, and provincial highway and carried out a spatial cross-analysis between the buffer zone and the distribution points of cultural resources. Among the 2864 cultural resources within the planning scope of the Yellow River National Cultural Park, 2532 are located in the high-speed buffer zone, 2649 are in the national highway buffer zone, 2671 are in the railway buffer zone, and 2810 are in the provincial highway buffer zone (Figure 6).

4.6.4. Interaction Effects of Different Factors

Figure 7 shows that the factors affecting the spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park show an enhanced relationship after the interaction of the two pairs, mainly manifested as nonlinear enhancement and two-factor enhancement, and there is no weakening and independent relationship. Specifically, there were 21 combinations of nonlinear enhancement relationships: (1) altitude and river length, slope, population, GDP, road network length, and number of A-class scenic spots; (2) average temperature, river length, slope, population, road network length, and number of A-class scenic spots; (3) river length and slope, population, road network length, GDP, number of A-class scenic spots; (4) population and slope, road network length; (5) the slope and the length of the road network, GDP, and the number of A-class scenic spots. The effects of the above influencing factors after interaction are greater than the sum of the influencing effects of individual factors. The remaining 7 pairs of factors showed that the two-factor enhancement relationship after the interaction was greater than the explanatory force when it acted alone, but the explanatory force after the interaction was less than the sum of the explanatory forces of the two.

The top four combinations of interaction detection results were: population ∩ length of the road network (0.322), the population ∩ number of A-class scenic spots (0.310), elevation ∩ A-class scenic spots (0.309), and GDP ∩ A-class scenic spots (0.300). This shows that the flatter the terrain, the larger the population; the more developed the economy, the more convenient the transportation; and the higher the cultural level, the more conducive to the development and preservation of cultural resources. When the number of A-grade scenic spots interacted with other factors, the explanatory power was significantly improved. It further reflects the importance of cultural tourism to the inheritance and development of cultural resources. Physical geographical factors alone produce weak driving forces, while the results of interaction with socio-economic and cultural factors are more prominent, so it is necessary to pay attention to the interaction between various factors. The spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River basin result from multi-factor coupling, and the effects of all influencing factors on the spatial distribution of cultural resources in the Yellow River basin need to be comprehensively considered.

5. Conclusions and Policy Implications

In this paper, we selected eight provinces within the planning scope of Yellow River National Cultural Park as the study areas and used a spatial analysis method to analyze the spatial distribution patterns and influencing factors of cultural resources. This paper draws the following conclusions.

First, the Yellow River National Cultural Park has a total of 2020 items of tangible cultural heritage and 844 items of intangible cultural heritage. The cultural resources show significant inter-provincial differences, presenting an overall distribution pattern that is characterized by dense concentration in the east and sparse distribution in the west. Shanxi Province has the most abundant cultural resources, while Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is relatively short of cultural resources. The number of intangible cultural heritage items in the three categories of traditional drama, traditional arts, and traditional music is high; in tangible cultural heritage, the number of cultural relic protection units is the highest.

Second, cultural resources exhibit clustered distribution, and most of them gather in the Yellow River basin. The high-density area covers the middle and south of Shanxi, the middle of Shaanxi, and the northern and central areas of Henan. The distribution of tangible cultural heritage shows a “Jin-Shaanxi-Yu” high-density core area and a sub-density core area.

Third, the nearest neighbor index calculation found that the spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage is more aggregated than that of tangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River National Cultural Park.

Finally, the influencing factors of cultural resource spatial distribution are diverse. Regarding geographical factors, terrain has a relatively small impact on the spatial distribution of cultural resources, while socio-economic and cultural factors have a greater impact. The number of A-class scenic spots is the most vital driving factor in the socio-economic dimension, which has a significant impact on the spatial distribution pattern of cultural resources.

Based on the above findings, this study proposes recommendations for the protection and rational use of cultural resources from the perspective of high-quality development. First, the number of cultural resources in the Yellow River National Cultural Park varies greatly between provinces, and each region should make construction plans according to local conditions and establish a digital image database to protect endangered tangible cultural heritage effectively. The eastern region integrates resources such as cultural relics, mass art galleries, and digital non-heritage pavilions to achieve chain cluster development. The western region conducts deep excavation to transform scattered and disordered cultural resources into concentrated series of cultural resources and build a spatial system to develop cultural and tourism industries. Second, high-density areas in Jinzhong, southwest Jin and Guanzhong, and north Yu can realize the in-depth development and revitalization of rich cultural resources through film and television, animation, theme parks, and other forms to enrich product supply, it is important to form a functional plate area with a linkage effect and develop a cultural tourism industry belt. Low-density areas should strengthen the research and identification of non-heritage items, carry out census and recording projects of non-heritage items, establish cultural and ecological reserves, and moderately develop the better-preserved cultural heritage. Third, the number of scenic spots and population density are the main factors affecting the distribution of cultural resources. Regions with a large number of scenic spots, dense populations, and developed economies should build intelligent management and service systems; cultivate and develop new industries; improve industrial chains, innovation chains, and value chains; and so on, driven by cultural consumption demand, to form the synergistic agglomeration advantages of culture and tourism industries and play a radiating role. Regions with few scenic spots, low population density, and less developed economies should strengthen policy guidance, optimize management systems, increase financial investment, and enhance the protection and repair, cultural excavation and construction of supporting facilities for projects such as the Yellow River Memorial, as well as improve the level of intelligence to enhance the consumption attraction. Fourth, it is important to play the coordinating role of various factors such as population size and GDP, feature the topographic undulations, and systematically design symbolic cultural park landscapes along the route to form a regional synergy model. The accessibility of scenic spots should be improved, and artificial intelligence and other technologies should be used to digitally upgrade the industrial system and the service system of scenic spots to enhance the experience of consumption. The effectiveness of the preservation and exploitation of cultural resources should be improved, and the culture and tourism industry development should be helped with high quality in the Yellow River National Cultural Park.