Abstract
Various statistical analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between economic indicators for Chinese provinces and railway freight volume. The results indicated that southeastern coastal areas such as Shanghai and Guangzhou received foreign capital and experienced rapid economic growth in secondary and tertiary industries. On the one hand, railway freight transport is centered on coal production regions like Dongbei and Huabei. In addition, a cluster analysis was performed on the distribution ratio classified by destination province for the railway freight volume from each province. The results indicate that China as a whole can be divided into seven railway freight transport zones such that the freight distribution ratios for destination provinces are similar for neighboring provinces.
