Visualization of Inter-regional Familiarity with a Focus on Elements of Institutional and Geographical Remoteness: The Kanmon Area Case

Abstract

This study aims to visualize the degrees of inter-regional familiarity that residents feel in a manner that is easy to understand. The study looked at the Kanmon Area (border area between Kyushu and Honshu) as an example, an area in which two cities face each other across a strait. Two types of time-space mappings were prepared using multi-dimensional scaling on the degree of familiarity felt by residents of 9 districts in this area, as well as geographical relationships and the behavior of residents. Inter-regional familiarity has an asymmetric nature. The results of this study are centered on two points. First, these data on inter-regional familiarity with an asymmetric nature were simplified in a manner that makes comparison of geographical relationships and other matters possible, as well as visualization in two dimensions. This analysis is innovative in some ways. Second, the strong impact of the presence of the strait on inter-regional familiarity was visualized. The inter-regional familiarity felt by residents is an important point that municipal governments should focus on as they promote future wide-range cooperation. We believe that these study results will contribute to policy formulation by municipal governments in their promotion of wide-range cooperation.