sustainability Article Spatial Distribution and Geographical Mechanism of Natural Resources in China under the Orientation of the New Economic Demands Xiangmin Zhang 1,2, Bin Yu 1,*, Hailong Yu 1,*, Zhuofan Li 1, Shen Luo 3 , Jianwu Sun 2 and Yong Fan 4 1 Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis and Simulation of Hubei Province, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China;
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[email protected] (H.Y.); Tel.: +86-132-6471-6677 (B.Y.); +86-136-0390-9658 (H.Y.) Abstract: The demand structure of resources for new economy is different from the traditional one in that its development may significantly change China’s economic location map and spatial pattern. Based on 343 administrative units of prefecture-level cities in China, this research constructs the measurement index system of terrestrial surface natural resources under the orientation of the new economic demands; this research mainly analyses the spatial distribution characteristics and geographical mechanism of natural resources by means of the spatial autocorrelation and Citation: Zhang, X.; Yu, B.; Yu, H.; Li, spatial similarity calculation methods. The results show that: (1) The structure and endowment of Z.; Luo, S.; Sun, J.; Fan, Y.