Newest planning methods implemented by Chinese government are promoting a coordinated regional development and shaping an orderly spatial structure by applying the regulation of territorial function. This article analyzes the problems of spatial planning and regional strategy caused by the wrongly-set primary goal of economic development; it states that the three-fold objective of competitiveness, sustainability, and welfare fairness shall be the principal for China to implement the spatial regulation in the new era; it discusses about theoretical thoughts and technology framework of conducting the ′Major Function Oriented Zone′ based on their different major functions that each region plays in urbanization and industrialization, ecological constructions, grain productions, and protection of natural and cultural heritages; it introduces the new concept of ′Major Function Oriented Zone′ that include the major functions category, the stereo regional equilibrium mode, the two-level zoning specification, and the territorial development intensity; it offers a zoning scheme that defines development-optimized and development-prioritized zones as regions with massive urbanization and industrialization, development-restricted zones as ecological constructing or grain producing regions, development-prohibited zones as natural and cultural heritage protecting regions; and finally it addresses the main obstacle for implementing ′Major Function Oriented Zone′, which is the institutional arrangement of the supreme goal of high GDP growth rate that is currently being implemented.
Based on the exploratory spatial data analysis （ESDA） technique and geographic information system （GIS） platform, with statistic data of counties in 2005, this paper confirms that there is a large population density gap between counties in 2005 because the Gini coefficient is 0.55. Population distribution does not change a lot during the past decades, and the southeast China is still much more densely populated than the northwest China. The global spa- tial autoeorrelation of population distribution is obvious because Moran＇s I scores 0.42 and local spatial autocorrelation is partly significant. Climate and elevation are still the main natural influ- encing factors. Meanwhile industrial structure and transportation significantly influence population distribution. Different combinations of natural factors have different effects on population distribution. For a long term, climate and terrain factor stability affect population distribution. But its influence will be weakened by progress of technology. Economic development is the main factor that changes population distribution for a short term.
