A New Interpretation in Urban Form of the Wards of Tang Chang'an

By comparing the gridiron plans of ancient western cities with that of Tang Chang'an in the same scale,the authors find that a residential ward of Tang Chang'an was about the same size as an ancient western city.Thus the paper puts forward a hypothesis that Tang Chang'an was not a single city,but a cluster of hundreds of small towns with rigid layout.This theory is then proved by comparing a ward of Tang Chang'an with a typical small town in China from the perspectives of town scale,spatial layout,residential density,and land-use.The authors further explain the main cause for this unique urban form of Tang Chang'an,which was the compulsory migration policy.

唐长安城市布局与坊里形态的新解

从城市形态的角度出发 ,从城市规模、城市肌理、街道尺度三个方面对唐长安和西方古代城市进行对比 ,对唐长安进行了新的解读 ,认为唐长安与西方古代城市存在着巨大的尺度差异。进而提出了唐坊里为小城镇的假说 ,即 :唐坊里不是街廓 ,而是一个个强制移民的小城镇 ;唐坊里之间的大街不是现代意义的街道 ,而是每个小城镇周边实行半军事管制的隔离带 ;唐长安不是一个现代意义的城市 ,而是近百个以农业经济为基础的、布局严整的、高度组织的小城镇群。并对此进行了定性定量的论证和分析。