The distribution of population is an important subject of study in human-ecological geography. To analyse the distribution of population from the positional point of view, as a method of study on this subject, is a matter of great importance. A method of quantitative measurement with “position” is a point in this method. Concerning the measurement, potentiality of population, Pareto constant (rank-size rule), class-size rule, and coefficient of evenness, etc., as a scale, these are being closely observed today with keen interest.
The method corcerning potentiality of population excels all others the close interrelation between it and other important social and economic phenomena of different kinds analysis-observation of population also……, though it is imcomplicated a little in the treatment. In any area, the relation between the size of an urban population and its rank is measured by Pareto's formula. This is called “urban rank size rule, ” but it is able to measure the evenness of various cities' size by the numerical value of the Pareto constant in such a case. Not being able to prove correlative analysis with urban spacial position by this method, we used here the urban class-size rule with a view to studying it. If we use a specific constant in each area, we will be able to grasp the structure of the urban space distribution corresponding to the size of a city (function) and its rank. A derived coefficient of evenness from Lorens' curve is easy, and a highly sensitive scale to evenness in the distridution of population. The author calculated that the coefficient of evenness on the subject of Japanese population in 1935 and 1955 were as follows: in cases where a block was taken as the unit, they became 0.62 and 0.64. In cases which took a prefecture as the unit, however, they were 0.55 and 0.56. We are able to appreciate through these numerical values that they were both showing evenness of distribution of population in Japan at those periods of time. We are also able to know quantitatively the present state of population distribution among urban population, rural population, and urban and rural population, by the above-mentioned scales of different kinds, though the general idea of equilibrium (balance) is also connected with these scales of different kinds, and that is impotant in human-ecological geography.
As mentioned above, these methods statistical, and they have an abstract and macroscopic characteristic in consequence. This method having abstract character is effective, in case it makes “region” whith in an other important subject in human-eecological geography (this is also an abstract idea) also an object of study.

抄録全体を表示

Yuki textile industsy has an old history, and up to date it has retained the unchanged process that is, thread is spun one by one out of floss-silk by the bulbs of fingers, and then it is woven by a primitive hand-loom, called ‘Izaribata’. Dyeing, thread-plying, and other workings are also all done by hand. The types of manufacturing process and relationship of the economic circulation in this industry are primitive. While the places of other historical textile industries in Japan have been modernized by the use of Takabata (Battan) or power loom instead of Izaribata, Yuki textile industry alone has maintained the from handed down since more than a thousand years ago. And while many of such places came to produce textiles for the markets in foreign lands rather than for those in the home land after the Industrial Revolution, and made rapid progress with the increasing extention of exports, and have finally resulted to form areas whose products supply both the domestic and foreign demands, Yuki industry has been confined to satisfy the domestic need of special kinds of pongee fabric.
1. The producing district of Yuki textile cosists of the chief ground within a radius of five kilometers around Yuki City, Ibaragi Prefecture, and the subsidiary ground within a distance of five more kilometers from the chief ground. The subsidiary ground, however, has the inclination of declining gradually, because the cultivation of such plants as tobacco and gourd for dried ground shavings (Kanpyo) in place of mulberry is prevailing and the factories of other industries in local cities are absobing the labor on this ground. The facts that the profits from these are superior to those from the textile industry, and the transport facilities are becoming well-developed also contribute to the decline in this industry.
2. Both the tradition and the special technique handed down from the past have combined to determine the location of this industry in this particular district. The complexity and variety of Yuki textile has yielded the unique producing process which has always been the same through history, and the peculiarity of this textile has stabilized its existence by supplying the demand for it. The characteristic of Yuki textile lies in the fact that the producing process cannot be done by machinery, but by hand.
3. The main reasons why this industry is concentrated along the Kinu River are that most of the land is used for the cultivation of mulberry because the gravel contained in the ground has reduced the fertility and therefore, the productivity of crops and vegetables, and that the cultivation acreage along the river is small.
4. An average farm-house of the settlements located within a distance of one kilometer from the Kinu River has 0.72 acre of paddy field, 1.17 acre of patch, and 0.75 acre of mulberry field. This portion of culiivated field per one house gets larger as the distance from the river becomes greater.
5. The small scale of agriculturing in this district has produced the potential surplus labor and the seasonal unemployment, which have satisfied the necessary labor in the textile industry. On the part of the industry it is a gain of the cheap labor, but on the part of the agriculture it is a release of the surplus labor.
6. Women of middle-age or over who are unable to leave their house and land mostly fill the labor needed for the weavering as their subsidiary work. There are not many specialists in weavering, dyeing, thread-plying, and other processings: 10%, 45%, 25%, and 80%, respectively. The male labor is common except in weavering.

抄録全体を表示

Recently a large-sized Gazetteer of Taiwan Plece-Names was published by the Fu-Min Geographical Institute of Economic Development. It is a by-product of our 14-year study of Taiwan. Now, this article is in turn a by-product of that gazetteer. In the course of the place-name study, we have come upon many interesting facts of geograhical significance. The one regret is that the place-name study is more of national character than any other geographical studies; therefore, many findings, when expressed in Chinese or Japanese for the supposed Chinese or Japanese readers, can be appreciated by them, but if one is bent on rendering them into a Western language, one will not only find that the job is cruelly exacting, but will also find the rendering disappointedly insipid. What we are coming to in the following pages are only some things of minor importance, for which we have always an aching void in our hearts.
Let us use the 1:50, 000 topographic map to calculate the different placenames of Taiwan. We get 7, 700. If repetitions were taken into account, the number would be 17, 800. The distribution of such place-names has almost a tendency to fall in with that of the population in a high degree. The type of rural settlements has also something to do with the number of place-names. The number of place-names varies with maps of different scales, and the difference thus produced is usually greater in the case of an area where scattered villages are than in a region dominated by compact villages. The Ilan Plain and the Taipei Basin are, for instance, very typical areas of scattered villages. On a 1:50, 000 topographic map one can find that there are only 56 place-names distributed over the 100-square-kilometer square north of Lo-tung on the Ilan Plain, averaging 0.6 place-name per square kilometer; yet on a 1:25, 000 topographic map, the place-names in the same area increase to 100. The difference is as great as 79%. All the villages on the Penghu Islands or the Pescadores are compact ones; on a map of 1:50, 000 there are 64 place-names on Penghu proper and on a topographic map of 1:25, 000 the number slightly increases to 68. The difference is only 6%. In the case of the Keelung Volcanic Group at the north-eastern corner of Taiwan, only one Ts'ao Shan (Grass Mountain) is found on the 1:50, 000 topographic map, yet there are three Ts'ao Shan's on a 1:25, 000 one.
Many repetitions appear in the place-names of Taiwan. At the time of calculation, the authors discovered 42 Hsing Chuang's (New Village, ) 30 Shan Chiao's and Shan Tzu Chiao's (Hill Foot), 28 San K'uai Ts'o's (Three-house Village), 23 Chu Wei Tzu's (Bamboo-surrounded Village), 20 Fan Tzu Liao's (Aborigines' hut), 17 shui Wei's (Water End), 15 Ch'iao T'ou's (Bridge Head) 14 Niu Pu's (Ox Ranch), 8 T'ien Chung Yang's (Field Center), 7 Shih Men's (Stone Gate) and 4 Mu Cha's (Wooden Castle). Therefore, if all the repetitions were taken into consideration, the recorded place-names of Taiwan might well be over 30, 000; and if those place-names not recorded and these old ones were all counted, the total number would be greater still.
Owing to the peculiar location of Taiwan, the cultural contacts of the island are rather complicated. Before the Chinese immigrants came over to the island, there had already been aborigines. Logically, there should have been place-names too, only they were not recorded. Although Taiwan was possibly known to the Chinese at a very early time, yet it was not until the early part of the 17th century that the Chinese began to settle in Taiwan. At that time, the places where the Chinese were stirring about were some coastal and river ports only, and most of them were engaged in trading or fishing. The best and earliest record of Taiwan is Tung Fan Chih (A Note on the Eastern Aborigines), written in 1603 in which the recorded place-names numbered only 12.
Between the 90 years 1603-1694, i.e.,

抄録全体を表示