Abstract:Taking Harbin and the eastern suburb as study area, this paper targeted to the division of the land gradient zones in the region as well as the intrinsic mechanism causing the landscape differentiation. Specifically, this study focused on the characteristics of the landscape structure based on the quantity changes of the land types between the city and the rural areas. With a study scope of 35 km from east to west and 16 km from north to south, the study area was averaged into 14 continuous gradient zones of 2.5 km from east to west and 16 km from north to south. All the gradient zones were categorized into three groups of urban area, suburb area, and far\|suburb area according to the construction and road density of the gradient zones.. Computer visual interpretation was used for the land type identification and regionalization, where the length and area for the land types in each gradient zone was calculated using GIS spatial analysis tools. Spatial structure characteristics of the green landscape for each gradients zone were studied for Harbin and the eastern suburbs regions based on the above calculations and analysis. Taking greenland construction as the core with consideration of the characteristics of urban landscape structure and spatial pattern, causes for landscape differentiation among varied gradients zones of different urban and suburb areas were further analyzed and discussed. Results showed that the regional road and building density, to a certain extent, reflects the process of urbanization of the local area, which was used as the criterion for dividing Harbin and the suburb areas into three categories of urban area, suburb area, and far\|suburb area.
Additionally, it is noticed that characteristics for humane landscape and green landscape varied from gradient zone to gradient zone. At last, the intrinsic mechanism of this kind of gradient characteristic was analyzed and discussed with some recommendation on the future construction of the greenland and the entire landscape for the study area as well as recommendation for local sustainable development.