Research on the spatial distribution and Geographical Environmental of Grotto Temples in Southern Shaanxi of China by ArcGIS

Abstract

Grottoes Temple is a kind of immovable material cultural heritage, Inclding architecture, sculptures and murals, which not only contains rich history and culture, but also expresses the spiritual civilization of mankind and the route of Buddhist transmission, and the distribution of grottoes also has many relations with the geographical environment. At present, 178 grottoes temples are distributed in southern Shaanxi. This paper analyzes the excavation environment of southern Shaanxi Grottoes by using 1:200,000 geological data sets and 30m resolution DEM(digital elevation model) topographic data. Secondly, the nuclear density analysis and standard deviation ellipse method are used to analyze the gathering degree of cave temple cultural sites and the distribution direction and pattern of cave temples in the study area, and discuss the distribution characteristics and spatiotemporal evolution model of the grottoes in southern Shaanxi. The final results include the following contents: (1) The distribution of grotto temples in southern Shaanxi is related to topography and geomorphology, mainly built on cliffs, the elevation is mainly below 1000m. As the elevation increases, the number of grottoes decreases. (2) The grotto temples of southern Shaanxi are mainly located near the river. The distribution pattern of grottoes is consistent with the direction of river gully. (3)The grottoes in southern Shaanxi are distributed unbalanced, due to geographical reasons, mainly distributed in Shangluo and Ankang areas.