Analyzing regional economic development patterns in a fast developing province of China through geographically weighted principal components analysis

Understanding spatial structure of regional economic development is of importance for regional planning and provincial development strategy. Taking Jiangsu province in the economically richest Yangtze Delta as a case study, this paper aims to explore regional economic development level on a province scale. Using the census 2010, eleven variables are selected for the statistical and spatial analyses at a county level. The traditional principal component analysis (PCA) and its local version – geographically weighted PCA are employed to these analyses for the purpose of comparisons. The results have confirmed GWPCA is an effective means of analyzing regional economic development structure through mapping the local principal components. It is also concluded that the regional economic development in Jiangsu province demonstrates spatial inequality between the North and South.