Coupling Coordination Evaluation between Population and Land Urbanization in Ha-Chang Urban Agglomeration

As the major form of urbanization, urban agglomeration integrates urban resources, adjusts industrial structure, narrows the gap between urban and rural areas, enhances urban function, strengthens urban competitiveness, and promotes the strategy of regional sustainable development. Based on the panel data of 10 cities in Ha-Chang urban agglomeration from 2000 to 2014, this paper establishes an evaluation index-system of population and land urbanization quality level, and analyzes the coordination degree, spatial heterogeneity, and spatiotemporal evolution of urbanization, through using the methods of range standardization, entropy weight model, and coupling coordination models. Results show that the quality of population and land urbanization was increasing gradually during the study period. However, the coordination degree between population and land urbanization rate is decreasing. The comprehensive level of population and land urbanization increasing yearly, from low-level coupling coordination reverse to high-level coupling stage. The quality differences between the population and land urbanization of the ten cities of the Ha-Chang urban agglomeration are significant. The radiation function of large-sized cities and the regulation of medium-sized cities are not strong, and the coordination degree of small-sized cities is low. In view of the coordinated status of the Ha-Chang urban agglomeration, differently size cities should propose corresponding urbanization development strategies to enhance the main function of the urban agglomeration.