Abstract
Historic water towns in the Yangtze River Delta are typical examples of traditional living forms in China. The paper investigated the spatial structure of five historic water town in the Yangtze River Delta, and made a study of the relationship between the space configuration and urban land use combining online heat map and field surveys, so as to reveal its morphogenetic principles. Street configurations of these water towns were analyzed according to measures of integration and choice. It is shown that river mode is the main factor to influence the spatial configuration of the historic town. The main spatial context was relatively more open than minor ones, which accumulated more communication activities. We also witnessed that new urban planning and transportation vehicle had the impact on spatial structure during the modernization process.
