Spatio-Temporal Patterns of County Population Shrinkage and Influencing Factors in the North–South Transitional Zone of China

Population is the foundation of socio-economic development. However, continued population shrinkage has made the problem of unbalanced and insufficient regional development more prominent, threatening human well-being. How to solve the contradiction between population shrinkage and regional development has become an urgent scientific problem. Therefore, taking a typical underdeveloped mountainous region, the North–South Transitional Zone of China, as an example, we analyzed the spatial and temporal evolution of regional population shrinkage from 2000 to 2020, classified the types of regional population shrinkage, and revealed the key influencing factors and driving mechanisms for the formation of population shrinkage patterns in poor mountainous counties. The results showed that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the number of counties in the North–South Transitional Zone of China with population shrinkage grew, and the degree of shrinkage increased. The shrinking counties were mainly municipal counties, and the shrinkage types were mainly continuous shrinkage and expansion followed by shrinkage. (2) Spatially, the shrinking counties had significant and strengthening spatial autocorrelation, with obvious characteristics of the contiguous shrinkage of county units, and the shrinkage center of gravity and shrinkage agglomeration areas showed an evolutionary trend of shifting from east to west. The shrinking counties had obvious divergence in both the “east–west” and “north–south” directions. (3) Natural factors had an endogenous rooting role, while human factors had a strong driving role, and the impact of different influencing factors varied significantly. (4) The formation and evolution of the spatial pattern of county population shrinkage was subject to the synergistic effect of natural factors and human factors. The interaction between natural and human factors had a non-linear enhancement effect and a two-factor enhancement effect. The results of this study are expected to provide a scientific basis for coordinating regional human–land relations in order to optimize population-flow governance and sustainable regional development in the North–South Transitional Zone and less-developed regions of China.