Shanxi Province hosts a rich diversity of traditional villages. From a river basin perspective, adherence to natural laws and the removal of administrative barriers are essential for reshaping the conservation paradigm. Using spatial analysis and multiscale geographically weighted regression, this study revealed the spatial patterns of 619 traditional villages and how environmental, socioeconomic, and historical–cultural factors shape the spatial heterogeneity. Villages clustered within the Yellow River Basin and the Haihe River Basin, forming an agglomeration belt and three high-density cores. Distance to rivers was a key factor in village siting, with 70.8% located within 3 km of the nearest river. Village density exhibited a U-shaped relationship with distance to roads, and an inverted U-shaped relationship with distance to county-level administrative centers. The interaction between intangible cultural heritage density and average annual precipitation showed the strongest explanatory power, with positive local regression coefficients exceeding 95% and 72%, respectively. Traditional villages constitute an evolving human–environment system in which water resources underpin spatial patterns and intangible cultural heritage sustains endogenous cultural vitality. These findings provide a theoretical framework for graded conservation and resource coordination at the river basin scale.

Traditional villages in river basins preserve rural landscapes through both environmental adaptation and accumulated heritage governance. Taking 173 national-level traditional villages in the Fenhe River Basin as the study objects, this study examines their spatial patterns and the heterogeneity of influencing factors using kernel density estimation, nearest-neighbor analysis, spatial autocorrelation, optimal-parameters-based geographical detector, and multiscale geographically weighted regression. The villages display a significant clustered distribution rather than a random or administratively bounded pattern, forming a belt-like structure along the Fenhe River, its major tributaries, and mountain-basin transition zones, with high-density cores in the Taiyuan and Linfen basins. Among all examined factors, the enrichment of cultural relic protection units shows the strongest explanatory power in the OPGD results, with a q-value of 0.4349. Its MGWR coefficients are also predominantly positive and significant, suggesting that officially recognized heritage resources act as spatial anchors for the persistence and organization of traditional villages. Precipitation, elevation, intangible cultural heritage, per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and historical post-road accessibility further shape village density, but their effects are spatially uneven. These findings suggest that conservation in the Fenhe River Basin should move beyond isolated village repair toward a watershed-scale linear heritage network linking river corridors, historical routes, cultural relic protection units, and cross-county governance.

Railway construction and industrialization played an important role in reshaping the urban morphology of inland resource-based cities in Republican-period China. Taking Taiyuan during 1912–1937 as a case study, this paper examines the spatial association between railway corridors and industrial locations and discusses how this relationship contributed to the reorganization of urban space. Historical maps, railway maps, local gazetteers, archival materials, and existing literature were integrated into a historical GIS database. Kernel density estimation, railway buffer analysis, mean-center analysis, and standard deviational ellipse analysis were used to reconstruct the staged evolution of industrial nodes and railway corridors. The results show that Taiyuan’s industrial space evolved from a scattered point-based pattern to a railway-oriented axial-belt layout and then to a polycentric industrial corridor. Industrial nodes gradually moved closer to railway lines, while the mean center of industrial distribution shifted from the traditional city toward railway-related industrial districts. The findings suggest that Taiyuan followed one possible railway–resource–industry pathway shaped by railway construction, resource endowments, provincial industrial policies, land conditions, and the inherited urban fabric. This study provides historical spatial evidence for identifying railway–industrial heritage corridors and understanding inland industrial urban form.

Traditional villages preserve regional cultural memory and distinctive rural landscapes while embodying the historical evolution of human–land relationships. This study examines the spatial distribution and influencing factors of 221 nationally listed traditional villages in central Shanxi using GIS-based spatial analysis, standard deviational ellipse analysis, river and road buffer analyses, and the optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD). The villages are significantly clustered in a multi-core, locally contiguous pattern oriented along a northeast–southwest axis. Most are located at elevations of 500–1000 m. Village frequencies vary nonlinearly with distance from rivers and roads, suggesting trade-offs among water access, hazard avoidance, and transport connectivity. Temperature, population density, GDP, and elevation show relatively strong explanatory power, while the interaction between urbanization rate and population density has the highest explanatory power. By linking historical formation conditions with contemporary development pressures, this study proposes a cultural landscape network organized around high-density village clusters, water-system and historical transport corridors, and major mountain–basin landscape units, supported by differentiated conservation zoning and context-specific rural spatial governance. These findings provide region-specific evidence for living heritage conservation and sustainable rural governance.

Historic urban areas in inland resource-based cities are often reshaped by overlapping changes in roads, public services, industry, housing, and everyday land use. However, these changes are not always clearly connected to differentiated conservation and renewal decisions. Taking the Taiyuan historical urban area as a case, this study aims to clarify how multi-period historical spatial evidence can be used to interpret morphological evolution, road accessibility, land-use transformation, and their conservation-renewal implications. Standard deviational ellipse analysis, kernel density estimation, and space syntax were used to separately examine urban form, land-use concentration, and road-network accessibility. Taiyuan changed from a compact walled city into a complex urban structure involving internal infill, local extension, and functional reorganization. The historical core retained its importance for commercial services, public administration, and highly accessible streets. New clusters appeared near peripheral transport nodes and residential expansion areas. The road network became more regular and better connected. Land use shifted from residential-administrative embeddedness to a differentiated pattern. Based on the three lines of evidence, four conservation-renewal zones are identified: key conservation, fabric repair, adaptive reuse, and coordinated renewal. Beyond the Taiyuan case, the study provides a case-based approach for linking historical map translation, HGIS analysis, and conservation-renewal zoning in inland historic urban areas.