Spatial pattern and changing trend of population inflow in China’s five major urban agglomerations

Urban agglomeration plays an important role in China’s urbanization pattern, and it is also the main population inflow place in the period of rapid urbanization. This paper focuses on the five urban agglomerations of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Chengdu-Chongqing. Using the census and dynamic monitoring survey data of floating population, this paper analyzes the spatial pattern of population inflow in urban agglomerations from the multi-dimensional aspects of inflow population distribution pattern, flow range and source, and discusses the development trend of spatial pattern and its impact on inflow and outflow from the perspective of spatial differences in residence and settlement willingness. The study found that the inflow population of urban agglomerations continued to concentrate in the key cities, and the level and spatial distribution pattern were generally stable; the scope of flow has been expanded, and the growth rate of flow within the province is generally higher than that between provinces; the population attraction range of coastal urban agglomeration is large, but it still obeys the law of distance attenuation. There are differences in the preference of urban agglomeration from different oringins. In the inflow area, the key cities of coastal urban agglomerations face the continuous challenge of floating population management services, and the attraction of key cities and general cities of inland urban agglomerations coexist; in the outflow areas, the equal and open supply of high-quality public services is an important way to attract population return, and the population loss in a few areas may become a long-term phenomenon.