Spatiotemporal patterns and influencing factors of intangible cultural heritage of music in the "Yellow River—Yangtze River Civilization Corridor", China

Abstract The "Yellow River—Yangtze River Civilization Corridor" is an important cultural corridor in China that gathers the main cultural heritage resources along China's two river basins. The space-time distribution of intangible cultural heritage in the "Yellow River–Yangtze River Civilization Corridor" significantly helps understand the development and evolution of China's two river civilizations. This study examines 3,277 national and provincial intangible cultural heritage sites related to music in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins of China. The spatial and temporal distributions of intangible cultural heritage of music (ICHM) were visualized by means of the nearest neighbour index, kernel density analysis, standard deviation ellipse and geographical detector, and the influencing factors were discussed. The results show the following: (1) The spatial distributions of ICHMs in the "Yellow River—Yangtze River Civilization Corridor" are significantly different, with a high concentration in the central region, where the largest number of traditional dance and the smallest number of quyi arts are located. (2) The "Yellow River–Yangtze River Civilization Corridor" ICHMs are agglomerated, forming a pattern of "one area and four points" in the combined area of western Shandong—southern Henan—southern Shanxi—central Shaanxi, along with Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hubei and Chongqing. The distributions of various ICHMs are different. (3) The historical development of ICHMs of the "Yellow River—Yangtze River Civilization Corridor" generally presents the changing characteristics of "two peaks and three valleys", which articulate a peak in artistic production in the pre-Qin to Qin and Han dynasties, and another in the Song and Yuan to Ming and Qing dynasties. Comparatively, production lies in a trough in prehistoric times, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties and in modern times. The overall trajectory of the centre of gravity of ICHMs shifts from northwest to southeast. (4) Population, an average temperature ≥ 10℃, GDP, elevation and annual rainfall play a leading role in the spatial distribution of ICHMs along the "Yellow River—Yangtze River Civilization Corridor". The synergistic effect of the social economy and natural environment is greater than the effect of single dimension factors on the spatial distribution of ICHMs in the "Yellow River-Yangtze River Civilization Corridor". The results provide a reference for policy-makers designing the protection, inheritance and sustainable development of ICHMs in the "Yellow River—Yangtze River Civilization corridor" and enrich the theoretical research and practical management of the world's river civilization ICHMs.