Spatial Analysis and Simulation

The chapter provides a historical perspective on recent methodological developments and theoretical insights in the theme of spatial analysis and simulation. The research questions and how they developed are first described. Contributions of different countries to this theme are then assessed in light of bibliometric results, followed by the analysis on the role of NSFC in supporting the research. Five key topics are refined based on the bibliometric result of keywords and reviewed systematically: the geo-ontology, spatial relationship analysis, the spatial estimation, the spatial simulation and the geovisualization. The future direction and dissimilarities between domestic research and overseas are also summarized in the end.