Analysis on the Necessity and Feasibility of Implementing the Strategy of "Protecting Farmland in Flatland Areas and Constructing Mountainous Cities" in Yunnan Province

Yunnan is one of the most typical mountainous provinces in western China. For the geographical features of mountainous areas accounting for most parts and flatland areas accounting for small parts, the contradiction between farmland protection and construction guarantee is very prominent. In the first half of 2011, Yunnan Province established creatively the strategy of "protecting farmland in flatland areas and constructing mountainous cities" (hereinafter referred to as the strategy of "constructing mountainous cities"), which was aimed at protecting effectively the limited and high quality arable land resources in flatland area and providing new construction area for new type of urbanization and industrialization, so as to achieve win-win situation between arable land protection and urbanization development. Implementing this strategy in Yunnan Province is feasible, mainly in the large development potentials in the gentle gradient between 8° to 25°. The gentle slope area between 8° to 25° occupies 51% of the total land area in Yunnan Province, which is almost 140 times of the area of urban construction land in Yunnan in 2009. The surrounding areas of flatland or main town in most counties (cities, regions) distribute with different sizes of low hills and gentle slopes, thus mountainous construction land reserves are abundant, which benefits for impelling the strategy of "constructing mountainous cities" in the light of local conditions.