Makeeva S.B. Experience in territorial development and land resource use in China’s northwestern province of Shaanxi. Far Eastern Studies. 2025. No. 1. Pp. 94-110.

Abstract

During the transition to the implementation of the regional coordinated development strategy in the PRC since the late 1990s, all provinces, autonomous regions and cities under the control of the Ministry of Natural Resources of China began to develop plans for territorial development and land use. This article summarizes the historical experience of territorial planning and land use in Shaanxi Province from the late 1990s to the present. Shaanxi played a key role in the implementation of the "opening up" policy in the western direction in the PRC. A comprehensive spatial policy was implemented in relation to the territory of Shaanxi in the framework of enhancing the agro-industrial potential, protecting cultivated land, maintaining rural-urban territorial balance and preserving historical and cultural heritage sites. Since the 1990s, the process of spatial planning and effective use of land resources in Shaanxi has been regulated by the General Land Use Plans of Shaanxi Province for 1997-2010, 2006-2020, 2021-2035, as well as the Special Land Use Plan in Shaanxi Province (2010-2015). The unique physical-geographical and naturalclimatic position of Shaanxi determined the resource potential of the regional economic development of this northwestern Chinese territory. The accumulated historical experience of land use in Shaanxi Province from 1990 to the present day is a practical guide to spatial transformation of the territory with increased economic and demographic unevenness, growing environmental problems, limited amount of high-quality arable land, predominance of mountainous and forested terrain, and depletion of land after mining. Formation of new territorial guidelines for regional infrastructure in Shaanxi Province is one of the options for solution of ecological and economic problems of Western China.