International Journal of Geo-Information Article The Socio-Spatial Distribution of Leisure Venues: A Case Study of Karaoke Bars in Nanjing, China Can Cui 1,2, Jiechen Wang 1,3,*, Zhongjie Wu 1, Jianhua Ni 1 and Tianlu Qian 1 1 Department of Geographic Information Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China; [email protected] (C.C.); [email protected] (Z.W.); [email protected] (J.N.); [email protected] (T.Q.) 2 Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 3 Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing 210023, China * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +86-25-8968-0669 Academic Editors: Mahmoud R. Delavar and Wolfgang Kainz Received: 13 June 2016; Accepted: 19 August 2016; Published: 25 August 2016 Abstract: With the development of service industry and cultural industry, urban leisure and entertainment services have become an important symbol of the city and the driving force of economic and social development. Karaoke, a typical form of urban entertainment, is immensely popular throughout China, and the number of karaoke bars is expected to keep growing in the future. However, little is known about their spatial distribution in the urban space and their association with other location-specific factors. Based on the geospatial entity data and business statistics data, we demonstrate a clustered pattern of 530 karaoke bars in Nanjing by means of point pattern analysis and cluster analysis in GIS. Furthermore, we identify the distribution of population, transportation network, and commercial centers as the three determinants underlying the formation of the pattern. Keywords: socio-spatial distribution; karaoke bar; leisure venue; China 1. Introduction Leisure industry was listed as one of the “Big Five” engines of economic growth [1]. “Big Entertainment”—everything from bars to video stores to opera houses—are at the forefront of the leisure industry. It has been witnessed that leisure and entertainment sector accounts for an increasing share of gross domestic product in China as well as worldwide, leading to an optimized economic structure. It also becomes a large provider of employment [2] and plays a crucial role in meeting residents’ recreational demand. Among residents’ recreation activities, singing is the most common and popular one. Karaoke bars are the commercial venue providing services for singing. Karaoke, originating from Japan [3], is a form of interactive entertainment in which an amateur singer sings along with recorded music (typically popular song minus the lead vocal) using a microphone. Karaoke soon spread to the rest of Asia and other countries all over the world [4]. Instead of placing karaoke machines in restaurants and hotel rooms in the early times, karaoke bars, with karaoke equipment installed in compartmented rooms and combined with food and other recreation service, emerged as a new business in the market and became enormously popular. The first karaoke bar in Mainland China was opened in 1990 in Hainan Province. Since then, karaoke has become one of the most popular leisure activities in urban China [5], and karaoke bars burgeoned throughout Mainland China. Our previous study shows that there are 87,700 karaoke bars in Mainland China as of 2012 [6], clustering in the eastern and central areas (Figure1). ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5, 150; doi:10.3390/ijgi5090150 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi ISPRSISPRS Int. Int. J. Geo J. 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