sustainability Article The Sustainable Development of Choronymic Cultural Landscapes in China Based on Geo-Informatic Tupu Yingying Wang 1,2,3, Dazhuan Ge 4 , Tongyan Zhang 1,2,3 and Yingjie Wang 1,2,3,* 1 State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China 2 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China 3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 4 School of Geography, Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +86-188-0117-0694 Received: 10 July 2019; Accepted: 4 August 2019; Published: 9 August 2019 Abstract: As a part of cultural landscapes, toponyms with abundant cultural connotations and a long history are valuable cultural heritage assets. Choronyms not only reflect natural and social phenomena but also help with relevant management and naming work. In order to explore the historical development sequence of choronymic cultural landscape evolution, we analyze the spatial–temporal pattern evolution, spatial–temporal variation, spatial association, and semantic evolution of choronymic cultural landscapes since the Qin dynasty. We adopt the sequent snapshot model and an event-based state amendment model to establish a spatio-temporal database. That can provide decision supports and theoretical reference for the sustainable development of toponymic landscapes. Results indicate the following: (1) Spatial distribution of toponym density has been different since the Qin dynasty. The cores of toponym density spread from the middle-lower reaches of the Yellow River to Yangtze Plain, Chengdu Plain, Pearl River Delta Plain.