Spatial agglomeration patterns and associated factors of intangible cultural heritage in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao greater bay area, China
Abstract
This study examines the overall, typological, temporal, and contextual geography of 188 national-level intangible cultural heritage (ICH) projects in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), China. Global Moran’s I, kernel density estimation, Getis–Ord Gi* analysis, standard deviational ellipse analysis, category-specific distribution profiles, spatial-coupling analysis, and directional historical-cultural and hydrological correspondence tests were applied. The cumulative inventory shows a core-dominated but weak and scale-sensitive recognition pattern centred on Guangzhou and Foshan (Moran’s I = 0.189, p = 0.035), whereas no individual inscription batch reaches statistical significance. Category-specific analysis shows that this aggregate core is not reproduced uniformly across ICH types: 60.0% of traditional fine arts projects are located in Guangzhou and Foshan, whereas traditional dance and music display broader estuarine distributions. Spatial-coupling analysis identifies the closest city-level distributional similarity between traditional music and traditional dance (cosine similarity = 0.911). A reconstructed register of 438 nationally or provincially protected historical-cultural sites in the nine mainland GBA cities further reveals differentiated directional correspondences between ICH categories and historical material environments, although no category-level association survives false discovery rate adjustment. Two hydrological indicators, the 2018 water surface ratio and its 2000–2018 change, likewise show heterogeneous rather than uniform relationships with different ICH categories. These findings are interpreted as directional spatial tendencies rather than causal effects. Conceptually, the study argues that the GBA’s aggregate ICH pattern is better understood as the superimposition of category–specific recognition geographies displaying differentiated relationships with historical, territorial, and hydrological contexts.