Historical and geographical study on socio-economic structure of market towns - "shi-zhen" - in the southern Yangtze delta.

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In the first year, we visited several small towns in Jiangsu Sheng and Shanghai, and investigated geographical environment, townscape, markets, factories, entertainment facilities etc. We also had occasions to hear from native researchers about agricultural management, cultural excise, administrative system and so on. With this hearing study and statistical material, we could get basic knowledge about these small towns.The research in the next year was carried out in two contrasting small town in the Shanghai City Region. In a traditional market town, Zyujiajiao Zhen, we made a intensive research on the administrative organization based on residential blocks and could get valuable facts about the relationship between administration and peoples. This small town is surrounded by a large rural village. Through the interview with the director of this village, we understood that this village could manage many growth factories because it had plenty of land for industry and surplus labor. The contracted responsibility system has been largely adopted in this area and surplus labor has come from agricultural sector with the raise of productivity accelerated by this system.Land use and settlement system was greatly changed to modernize socio-economic structure in the second town we investigated. In this town, Luodian Zhen, large farmland was managed by a few professional farmers under the contracted responsibility system and surplus labor was employed by local industries in the town center.The hearing research concerning residential committee was made in this town and the result was similar to that in Zyujiajiao Zhen. In addition to such study, the investigation was done to reveal the landformation process in a large plain from Taihu Lake to Hangzhou Bay. We could several new clues to explain this process from the geographical point of view.