Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

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Journal of Transport Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo

Evolution of air transport network of China 19302012

Jiaoe Wang a, Huihui Mo b, Fahui Wang c,d,
a

Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
China Communications and Transportation Association, Beijing 100053, China
c
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
d
School of Urban and Environmental Studies, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, Kunming, Yunnan 650221, China
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Keywords:
Air transport network
Transportation development model
Complex network
Hub
K-core
China

a b s t r a c t
This paper analyzes the evolution process of the air transport network of China (ATNC) since 1930. Based
on the network analysis results, the ATNC has signicantly improved in connectivity based on (1) rising
alpha, beta and gamma indices, (2) declining diameter and centre index and (3) decreasing average path
length and increasing clustering coefcient. The network centralization index reveals a uctuation phase
before 1952, a pre-1980 centralization phase before the economic reform era, a centralization phase after
the mid-1990s deregulation, and a decentralization phase between. The k-core decomposition method
helps identify the evolution of core network and hierarchy of the ATNC over time. The spatial development model characterizes its structure change in six stages: (1) scattered development, (2) trunk line
connection, (3) circular linkage, (4) hub formation, (5) a complex network structure, and (6) emerging
multi-airport systems.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The advancement of complex network theory has generated an
increasing body of literature on its applications in transport
systems (Barthlemy, 2011). The largest amount of work is on air
transport networks: the global network (Barrat et al., 2004;
Guimer et al., 2005), the national level such as India (Bagler,
2008), Italy (Guida and Maria, 2007), US (Xu and Harriss, 2008)
and China (Li and Cai, 2004; Wang et al., 2011), and specic airlines
(Reggiani et al., 2009). These studies are primarily interested in the
statistical properties of network structure, and most examine the
static state of a network in one year.
Several studies focus on the historical evolution of air transport
networks. An early study by Holsman and Crawford (1975)
developed a four-phase model of air network growth in northwest
Australia. The study area was regional, and no modern network
analysis methods were used. OConnor (1995) used the indices of
centrality, intermediacy and proximity to analyze the air transport
development in Southeast Asia and summarized a four-stage model for the region, but the analysis emphasized the location of hubs.
Bonnefoy and Hansman (2007) examined the evolution of the air
transport networks in the US from 1976 to 2005, with the primary
interest in the network scalability and efciency. Hua et al. (2010)
Corresponding author at: Department of Geography and Anthropology,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. Tel.: +1 225 578 6629.
E-mail address: fwang@lsu.edu (F. Wang).

also used the complex network theory to examine the change of

the US air transport network from 1990 to 2008, and identied
the major driving force of network evolution as an aging effect
and the preferential attachment. One common oversight of these
recent studies employing the complex network analysis method
is the lack of discussion of geographic, political and economic factors that strongly inuence the conguration and evolution of air
transport networks.
China has a population of 1.35 billion in 2012 (National Bureau
of Statistics of China, 2013) and a long history of air transportation.
Before the economic reform in 1978, Chinas air transport system
was under a strong control by the central government (Zhang,
1998). Since 1978, air travel in China has grown rapidly, and
reached an air passenger volume of 319 million and an air passenger movement of 502.6 billion person-km with 180 commercial
airports in service in 2012, only surpassed by the US. The study
of air transport network of China (ATNC) is interesting because of
not only its large territory with rapid economic growth for more
than three decades but also its gradual transition from a centrally-planned economy to a more market-oriented system.
Despite the rising role of air transportation in China, there has
been a lack of systematic examination of the complete evolution
history of ATNC, particularly in mainstream international journals.
Most studies on the ATNC focused on the spatial pattern of air
passenger ows and airport hubs. Among others, Jin et al. (2004)
examined the geographic patterns of air passenger transport in
China from 1980 to 1998; Zhou and Li (2005) analyzed the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.02.002
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Please cite this article in press as: Wang, J., et al. Evolution of air transport network of China 19302012. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.02.002

J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

relationship between Chinas airport distribution and tourist development; and Wang and Jin (2007) found that the ATNC was mainly
composed by city-pair connections with some primitive features of
a hub-and-spoke system. More recently, Ma and Timberlake (2008)
used longitudinal air passenger ow data to analyze the leading
cities of China at both the national and global levels during
19902005; and Xiao et al. (2013) used the reversed gravity model
to estimate the attractions of major cities from the air passenger
ow data in China. Other studies (Le, 1997; Zhang, 1998; Liu,
2000; Zhang and Chen, 2003; Zhang and Round, 2008, 2009; Yang
et al., 2008; Shaw et al., 2009) emphasized the regulation and management of Chinas airline industry and air transport system. Several studies used the complex network theory to analyze the
network structure of ATNC in a particular year (Li and Cai, 2004;
He et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2011) or over a short period such as
20022009 (Zhang et al., 2010).
After over two decades of arduous data collection, this research
team has compiled historical records of ATNC back to its infancy
stage in the 1920s, and the data of network routes since 1930. It
enables us to analyze various development stages of ATNC and
the evolution process of its network structure and examine the
effects of major political events and policy initiatives. This study
advances the existing network analysis literature on the ATNC in
at least three aspects:

1966, so the data points for 19652005 were every ve years.

2008 was the year a previous study (Wang et al., 2011) was based
upon. The most recent data accessible to us was 2012.
The ATNC data before 1975 were based on Wang (1986), and
the others were from the Timetable of Air Carriers in China
(1985, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2008, and 2012). In the network, cities
with any airport(s) are the nodes, and inter-city links with any
ight connections form the edges. Two or more airports in one city
are considered as one node. A stopover ight is composed of its
route segments (e.g., a ight I-J-K includes two edges IJ and
JK). As a result, the ATNC is dened as an undirected network
G = (V, E). The node set is dened as V = {mi: i = 1, 2, . . . n}, where m
is the number of nodes (cities); and the edge set is dened as
E = {ei: i = 1, 2, . . . m}, where e is the number of edges (air routes).
Two nodes are neighbors if there is a direct linkage between them.
An adjacency matrix A is dened such that its element aij = 1 when
a ight exists between cities i and j, and aij = 0 otherwise. Fig. 1a
and b show the change of nodes and edges of ATNC in major years
during 19302012, respectively.
3. Network expansion and connectivity improvement
3.1. Network expansion and economic growth
The numbers of nodes and edges have experienced allometric
growths. The number of nodes rose from 24 in 1930 to 170 in
2012 with nearly a constant increment (Fig. 1a), and the number
of edges increased exponentially from 23 in 1930 to 1129 in
2012 (Fig. 1b). Since 1980 (i.e., two years after the launch of economic reforms), Chinas air transportation in both passengers and
cargo has grown rapidly along with the development of Chinas
economy (Fig. 2). An earlier study reported that a percent growth
in GDP corresponded to an average of 1.6% increase in air passengers in China during 19801998 (Jin et al., 2004). Our analysis
indicates that the growth ratio declined slightly to 1.30 during
20002008 (i.e., 1% growth in GDP corresponds to 1.3% growth in
air passenger trafc) and rebounded to 1.53 during 20082012.
Meanwhile, a percent growth in GDP also corresponded to an
average of 0.87% increase in air cargo during 20002012. In
2012, an increase of GDP by 1 million RMB corresponds to an
increase of about 6 passengers and 105-kg cargo.

(i) covering the most complete time span from 1930 to 2012,
(ii) employing the network centralization index and the k-core
network method that have been less utilized in the aforementioned literature on network analysis of ATNC, and
(iii) proposing a six-stage development model for the ATNC with
ties to the geographic, political and economic forces.

2. Study area and data sources

The study area is limited to mainland China excluding Hong
Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The selection of the data points
(as shown in Fig. 1a and b) is mainly dictated by data availability.
Note that 1930 was the year that a primitive air transport network
was formed in China and also before Japan invaded northeast of
China in 1931, and 1937 is the rst year of the Second Sino-Japanese
War (19371945). 1941 and 1947 were chosen because of data
availability. The years in the post-1949 New China era were chosen as the onset or the end of a National Five-Year Plan (5YP) when
major national data reports are released. For example, 1952 and
1957 were right before and at the end of 1st 5YP (19531957),
1962 is the end of 2nd 5YP (19581962), 1965 is before the 3rd
5YP (19661970), and so on. The 5YPs were not continuous until

3.2. Improvement in basic connectivity indices

Evaluation of the overall network connectivity begins with basic indices as below (Kansky, 1963; Haggett and Chorley, 1969;
Taaffe et al., 1996; Black, 2003):

180

1200

160

120

800

Number

Number

edges

1000

cities

140

100
80
60

600
400

40
200

Year

(a)

2012

2008

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

1965

1962

1957

1952

1947

1941

1937

1930

2008

2012

2005

1995

2000

1985

1990

1980

1975

1965

1970

1957

1962

1952

1941

1947

1930

1937

20

Year

(b)

Fig. 1. Network growth of the ATNC 19302012: (a) nodes (cities), (b) edges (city pairs).

Please cite this article in press as: Wang, J., et al. Evolution of air transport network of China 19302012. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.02.002

J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

400

8000
7000

y = 0.006x + 2.236
R = 0.993

300

cargo (kiloton)

passenger (million)

350

250
200
150
100
50
0

y = 0.126x + 122.9
R = 0.966

6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

GDP (billion)

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

GDP (billion)

Fig. 2. Growth of economy and air transport in China 19522012: (a) cargo vs. GDP, (b) passengers vs. GDP.

(i) The alpha index is the ratio of actual to maximal number of

m1
circuits in a fully connected network, i.e., a m2e
, and
1m2

thus 0 6 a 6 1.
(ii) The gamma index is the ratio of actual to maximal number of
edges, i.e., c 2e=mm  1, and also 0 6 c 6 1.
(iii) The beta index is the average number of edges (e) per node
(m), i.e., b = e/v.
(iv) Denoting the topological distance (i.e., number of edges by
the shortest path)from node i to j as dij, the diameter r is
the maximum dij, i.e., D max dij . In other words, the diami;j
eter is the topological distance between the two most
remote nodes of a network.
(v) Denoting the topological distance from a node i to its most
remote node as max dij , the centre index is the smallest
j

max dij among all nodes (i = 1, 2, . . . , n), i.e., g = mini{ maxj

j

(dij)}. It usually captures the topological distance from the

best-connected node to its most distant node in a network.
A larger value of alpha, gamma or beta index, or a smaller value
of diameter or centre index, indicates a better-connected network.
The overall network connectivity of ATNC has been constantly
improving as the alpha, gamma and beta indices have generally
raised (Fig. 3a) and the diameter and centre index have declined
(Fig. 3b). Specically, during 19302012, the beta index has steadily climbed from 0.958 to 6.641, and the alpha index has increased from 0 to 0.068 with a big drop after 1937 because of
the Sino-Japanese War (19371945) and the Chinese Civil War

(19451949) then a gradual rebound in the era of Peoples Republic of China (PRC) after 1949. In the early stage of PRC, the gamma
index decreased from 0.087 in 1952 to 0.046 in 1975 when many
new airports were under construction and few routes connected
them, but the index then rebounded in the post-reform era since
1980 and reached 0.099 in 2008 with the addition of a large number of new routes. The diameter of ATNC declined from 13 in 1930
to 4 in 2012 (with a brief bump up to the largest value 15 in 1962),
and the centre index also dropped from 7 in 1952 to 2 in 2012 (also
with a brief peak value 8 in 1962). The outlier year 1962 was the
end of the Three-Years Great Famine (19591962) that brought
Chinas economy to the edge of collapse. The diameter and the centre index reached the lowest value (4 and 2, respectively) in 1995
and again 2012. This may indicate that the development of ATNC
became fairly mature in 1995. The expansion continued by adding
more nodes (cities) in peripheral areas to the network with temporally increased values of diameter and centre index during 2000
2008. As more air routes were built in the network, the diameter
and centre index returned to their minima in 2012.
3.3. Declining average path length and increasing clustering coefcient
Fig. 4 shows the distribution of city pairs that are connected by
the fewest link(s), denoted by SL (the topological distance between
two cities). For example, SL = 1 represents a city pair by a direct
link, 2 by a one-stop connection, and so on. The development of
ATNC has made more cities reachable by direct, one-connection
or fewer ights. The proportions by various numbers of SL

Fig. 3. ATNC network connectivity 19302012: (a) alpha, beta and gamma index, (b) diameter and centre index.

Please cite this article in press as: Wang, J., et al. Evolution of air transport network of China 19302012. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
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J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%

SL=1

SL=2

SL=3

SL=4

2012

2008

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

1965

1962

1957

1952

1947

1941

1937

0%

1930

10%

Year

SL>4

Fig. 4. Distribution of citypairs by number of connections in ATNC 19302012.

uctuated before 1952, but some patterns emerged after that. For
example, the proportion of city-pairs with SL = 1 varied during
19302012, and was below 10% with one except (14.0% in 1941).
The proportion of city-pairs with SL = 2 uctuated before 1965,
but increased steadily from about 10.7% in 1970 to more than
57.2% in 2012. The proportion with SL = 3 increased till 1975 and
declined gradually afterwards, and the portions for SL = 4 or more
decreased quickly and became negligible since 1990s. In a sharp
contrast, the proportion of city pairs with SL 6 3 was merely
30.4% in 1952, and all city-pairs could be reached by transferring
no more than twice in 2012.
The above observation of improving connectivity between
nodes can be further validated by two analytical indices (Watts
and Strogatz, 1998):
(i) The average path length (L) is dened as the average number
of edges along the shortest paths for all possible node-pairs
P
1
in a network, written as L 1nn1
i>j dij .

Fig. 5a and b shows the average path length and clustering

coefcient of the ATNC during 19302012, respectively.
The corresponding indices for a random network with the same
number of nodes are shown as reference and comparison. The
average path length (L) of ATNC decreased from 5.61 in 1930 to
2.29 in 2012, i.e., a drop of 59.2%. It remained higher than the average path length in a random network (L), and the gap has been
expanding since 1980. Meanwhile, the clustering coefcient (C) increased stably from 0 in 1930 to 0.62 in 2012. With the only exceptions of 1930 and 1952, it was much higher than the clustering
coefcient in a random network (C), and the gap reached the highest in 2012 (i.e., C = 0.08 versus C = 0.62). Declining average path
length and increasing clustering coefcient (as well as the enlarging gaps from their theoretical values in a random network) indicate that the ATNC has evolved to a compact system and become
far better connected over time, bearing much resemblance to a
small-world network (Wang et al., 2011).

(ii) The clustering coefcient (Ci) of a node i is the portion of

actual edges (Ej) between the nodes (ki) within its neighborhood (i.e., all its adjacent nodes excluding the node itself)
divided by the maximal possible edges (ki(ki  1)/2) between
i
. The clustering coefcient of the
them, i.e., C i k k E1=2
i

whole network C is the average of all individual Cis.

4. Network centralization and core structure

4.1. Network centralization and decentralization
Centrality is often used to analyze the relative importance of a
node within a network. For example, the degree centrality (DCi)

Fig. 5. Comparison of the average path length and clustering coefcient of the ATNC with the random network, 19302012. Note: L is average path length; C is clustering
coefcient; L0 and C0 are their theoretical values in a random network of the same number of nodes.

Please cite this article in press as: Wang, J., et al. Evolution of air transport network of China 19302012. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
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J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

is the number of edges that a node shares with others, the closeness centrality (CCi) is the inverse of the average shortest distance
from a node to all other nodes, and the betweenness centrality
(BCi) measures how often a node is traversed by the shortest paths
connecting all pairs of nodes. These nodal centrality indices capture a nodes importance as being directly connected to others,
being close to others, and being the intermediary between others,
respectively (Wang et al., 2011).
Here a centralization index for an entire network is introduced
(Freeman, 1978/1979; Gil and Schmidt, 1996). Using Ci to represent any of the aforementioned nodal centrality DCi, CCi or BCi at
node i, the most central node (or center node) in the network
is the one with the highest centrality value, i.e., CMAX = max {Ci}.
The network centralization index measures how central the most
central node in a network is in comparison to every other node
(Sinclair, 2009). It is normalized to have a value between 0 and
1, written as:

P
CX

 Ci
C
 Ci
MAX
i2V

i2V C MAX

max

In the formula, the numerator sums up the difference of centrality

between the center node and each node across all nodes in the network, and the denominator is the maximum over all networks with
Pn1
n nodes, computed by the equations
i1 maxC MAX  C i , i.e.,
(n  1) (CMAX  CMIN). A larger CX indicates a more centralized network. The index reaches the minimum value 0 in a network with
equal centrality for all nodes, and a maximum value 1 in a network
dominated by one node. For example, based on the degree centrality in the 1952 ATNC, Beijing had the largest centrality value
CMAX = 4, and several cities had only one link to another city with
the minimum centrality CMIN = 1. The numerator was the sum of
the differences of centrality between Beijing and all the other nodes,
i.e., 48, and the denominator was (n  1)  (41) = 66, where n = 23.
Therefore, the degree centralization index of ATNC was 48/
66 = 0.727 in 1952.
Fig. 6 shows the change of centralization index CX for ATNC during 19302012. The betweenness-based CX always has the largest
value, followed by the degree-based CX, and then the closenessbased CX, except for the years of 1930 and 1952. In 1930, although
the betweenness-based CX has the highest value, closeness-based
CX was higher than the degree-based CX. In 1952, the degree-based
CX has the highest value. Here, the year of 1952 was the obvious
turning point. Before 1952, the values of all three centrality indices
were unstable because of the inuences of the Sino-Japanese War
(19371945) and the Chinese Civil War (19451949). Both the

Fig. 6. Centralization Index of the ATNC, 19302012.

degree centralization and the betweenness centralization rst

increased signicantly from 1952 to 1965, dipped in 1970, and
climbed up slowly and stayed relatively stable after 1995. The
closeness centralization uctuated the most exhibited a general
upward trend with peaks in 1975, 1995, and 2012. Taking all three
indices together, the ATNC may be characterized as (1) major uctuations before 1952, (2) centralization during 19521975, (3)
decentralization during 19751995, and (4) centralization after
1995.
The above analysis is further validated by examining the relative dominance of top nodes in the network. Fig. 7 shows the percentage of city-pair links by the top cities. In 1930, the top 5% cities
accounted for 6.5% air routes and the top 10% cities for 13.0% air
routes, the corresponding percentages increased to 17.0% and
24.0% in 1947 and then dropped to 9.1% and 15.9% in 1952. Since
1952, the air routes by the top 5%, 10%, and 20% airports gradually
increased until 1965 and then dropped in 1970 because of the disturbance of the Culture Revolution during 19661976. Since 1980,
the proportion of air routes by the top 10% airports kept stable with
a high value of over 40.0% except in 1985 (38.1%) and 2008 (39.5%).
Similar trends are observed for the ratios of links held by the top 5%
and 20% cities.
In summary, the evolution process of ATNC experienced uctuations before 1952, a period of centralization from 1952 to 1975, a
period of decentralization for 19751990 and back to centralization after 1995. The wars explained the unstable trend prior to
1952. The centralization during 19521975 was likely due to the
improvement of aircraft technology and the introduction of longhaul air ights in the 1970s. The minor decentralization in the
post-reform era till 1995 reected the impact of pro-market reform
measures including civil aviation management in China (e.g., the
separation of CAAC and air transportation management from the
military, and encouragement of competition between airlines).
Six trunk airlines (Air China, China Southern, and China Eastern,
Southwest China, Northwest China, North China) were found in
1980s and a lot of local airlines also emerged in 1980s. The restructuring of ATNC led to formation a hub-and-spoke network in the
1990s (Jin et al., 2004), and may help explain the centralization
trend since 1995.
4.2. Core structure and shifting hubs
In a complex network such as an air transport network, the notion of k-core, introduced rst by Seidman (1983), is of fundamental importance to detect the modular structure and nd the

Fig. 7. Ratio of edges by top cities, 19302012.

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relationship between the substructures. In a network G V; E as

dened previously, a k-core of G is a maximum sub-network of
nodes, all of which are connected to k of other nodes. Specically,
a subnet H = (C, E) with the set of nodes C # V is a k-core or a core
of order k if and only if the degree of every node m # C is greater
than or equal to k, and H is the maximum subnet (Alvarez-Hamelin
et al., 2008). In implementation, a k-core is derived by recursively
removing all the nodes with degree <k, until all nodes in the
remaining network have degree at least k (Wang et al., 2006). This
research uses the k-core decomposition method to uncover the
hierarchical structure of the ATNC.
In implementation, we rst delete all the nodes with degree
k = 1 recursively, and then gradually increase the value to 2, 3
and so on until no sub-network exists in the ATNC. During 1930
1962, the number of air routes was almost evenly distributed to
each node, and no network existed when k > 2 except the years
of 1941 and 1947 with the maximum k = 3. Since 1965, the k-core
network, fully connected, began to emerge again. In 1965, the
above k-core decomposition method yielded k = 4, i.e., a k-core network with ve remaining nodes (Beijing, Wuhan, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Zhengzhou as shown in Fig. 8). This core-network was
fully connected with 10 edges (i.e., gamma index = 100%). Table 1
shows the value of k, the number of nodes, edges, and the gamma
index in the k-core network from 1930 to 2012. Note that Table 1
presents the properties of the k-core network, in contract to the full
ATNC, whose properties are shown Fig. 1. The k value gradually
rose from 4 in 1965 to 24 in 2008 and then dropped to 21 in
2012. In the corresponding years, the number of nodes in the kcore network increased from 5 to 31, and then dropped to 26,and
the number of edges increased exponentially from 10 to 430, and
then dropped to 297 (as shown in Fig. 1a and b).
As shown in Fig. 8, the k-core network was conned to the
North China Plain region and along the middle-lower reach of
the Yangtze River with ve cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan,
Zhengzhou and Nanjing) in 1965, where the highest concentrations
of population and economic activities occurred at the time. In
1975, the nodes in the k-core network increased to 14. It expanded
toward the south to add Hangzhou, Nanchang, Changsha and
Guangzhou to the core network, and also toward the west and
southwest by adding Xian, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guiyang, Kunming and Nanning. In 1985, the k-core network shrank with the
exits of Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Guiyang, Nanchang, and Nanning,
and 9 remaining cities formed a fully connected network. In
1995, the k-core network expanded signicantly and was composed of 23 cities. The additions such as Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen,
Haikou, and Fuzhou indicated the development focus of ATNC
moved to the coastal areas. During 20002012, the number of cities in the k-core network remained largely unchanged, but the
number of edges between them greatly increased to improve
the connectivity ratio from 76.5% to 91.4%. With the expansion of
the core network, the hubs of ATNC began to form and moved from
the north to the south, from the middle and west to the east, to be
further discussed in the next section.
5. Spatial development model for ATNC
Taaffe et al. (1963) developed a model to illustrate the evolution
of transportation networks and economic development, particularly suitable for a developing country. Wang et al. (2009) proposed
a conceptual model to summarize the historical development of
railway network in China. Both models are based on surface transportation. This section summarizes the evolution of ATNC over time
with an emphasis on its spatial structure (with representative years
shown in Fig. 9), based on which a conceptual model is developed to
highlight corresponding stages (shown in Fig. 10). The rst four
stages have largely been completed, and the nal two stages are

ongoing with various degrees of development across China because

of regional disparities.
5.1. Scattered development (pre-1949)
The early use of airplanes in China was limited to military. The
civil aviation of China dates back to the 1920s with short ights
such as BeijingTianjin (1920), BeijingBeidaihe (1921) and LuoyangXian (1925). However, a weak economy and a prolonged period of wars in China before 1949 led to intermittent service of air
routes and frequent relocation of airports. For example, the alpha
index of ATNC was 0 with 24 airports and only 23 air routes in
1930, increased to 0.039 in 1941 and then dropped to 0 again
immediately after the wars. Meanwhile, the beta index was less
than 1.50 before 1949, and the network diameter was 13 in 1930
and remained as high as 8 in 1947. Besides the low connectivity,
most airports did not have ights on a regular basis. Air routes
were short and anchored by major cities. The facilities and services
in airports were also simple and primitive for passengers and cargos. Low connectivity, a long network diameter, and unstable linkages characterized the ATNC at this stage. Due to the high
construction cost, most airports were converted from the military
use and co-sponsored by local government, and thus had a close tie
with military and government. In summary, this stage was an era
of Scattered Development because of political fragmentation in
China and the limited distance range of aircrafts at the time
(Fig. 10a).
5.2. Trunk line connection (1950s)
Shortly after the founding of Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in
1949, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) was established, and operated under the Central Military Commission till
1954. Similar to stage 1 proposed by OConnor (1995), major cities
(usually provincial capitals) were connected along a linear route
with the capital Beijing at the center of the network, as illustrated
in Fig. 10b. In the 1950s, Chinas aviation experienced an impressive growth as the economy recovered from the wars. For 1950
1955, the annual growth rates of airports and air routes were
16.3% and 17.88%, respectively. By the end of the First Five-Year
Plan (5YP) in 1957, Chinas air transport had recovered to the
pre-war level with 68,500 annual passengers and 8,000-ton cargo.
At this stage, the development of air transport in China was
handicapped by shortages of pilots and navigation systems. As
shown in Fig. 9a, the ATNC in 1952 was made of airports and routes
connecting to Beijing. Since the network was connected with minimal edges for efciency, the beta index was almost 1 and the degrees were 2 at most nodes with no apparent hierarchy. Note that
the average path length was as high as L = 5.74 and the clustering
coefcient was 0. Over half of city pairs were connected by at least
4 transfers. The centrality index was as high as 7, and the network
diameter reached the maximum 14. Air transportation was especially important in west China where ground transportation infrastructures were poor. This stage was labeled trunk line
connection.
5.3. Circular linkage (1960s and 1970s)
With the improvement of aircraft technology, the air network
expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. The CAAC continued to
operate in a semi-military style as a branch ofce of the Air Force
until 1980. In 1970s, China imported 17 large and medium-sized
jet aircrafts such as Ilyushin Il-62, Boeing 707, and Trident of medium and long ight ranges, and a total of 140 commercial aircrafts
were in service. With improving network connectivity, the corenetwork began to emerge. As shown in Fig. 9b, multiple anchoring

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J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

cities began to emerge in 1965 by either establishing routes with

new airports or strengthening the linkage with existing airports.
The former expanded the geographic coverage and the hinterlands

of hub airports, and the latter was useful for forming the loops and
improving the network structure. For instance, the 1965 ATNC had
61 airports and 100 air routes with the beta index reaching 1.64

Fig. 8. The k-core sub-network in ATNC since 1965.

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Fig. 8 (continued)

and the centrality index declining to 5. The average path length

also decreased to L = 3.93 and the clustering coefcient grew to
C = 0.27 in 1965. The ATNC was anchored by ve nodal cities such

as Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing. However,

the development was halted by the Cultural Revolution (1966
1976). In 1970, the beta index dropped to 1.3 and the network

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Table 1
Properties of the k-core network in the ATNC.

Year

Number of nodes in the k-core network

Number of edges in the k-core network

Connectivity (gamma index)a (%)

1930
1937
1941
1947
1952
1957
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2008
2012

1
2
3
3
1
2
4
3
5
6
8
10
15
15
13
24
21

4
7

5
13
14
12
9
22
23
28
26
31
26

6
13

10
22
50
49
36
157
216
289
214
430
297

100
61.9

100
28.2
54.9
74.2
100
68.0
85.4
76.5
65.8
92.5
91.4

Ratio of actual to maximal number of edges.

diameter increased to 12. Nevertheless, as illustrated in Fig. 10c,

the improvements transformed the ATNC from a trunk-line network in stage 2 to a network with circular linkage in this stage.
This is different from a planar (ground transport) network evolving
from a grid network to a triangle network (Taaffe et al., 1996).
5.4. Hub formation (1980s and 1990s)
In the post-economic reform era in the 1980s and 1990s, the
economy and air trafc demand grew rapidly in China, and some
major hubs of the network began to emerge. The economic reforms also reached the air transport system in China by gradually
shifting from strict regulation to a market-oriented management
style. The CAAC became independent from the military in 1980,
and so did the air transport in China. In the 1980s, the CAAC
implemented various reform measures, e.g., separating the managements of airlines, airports and the CAAC central ofce, transforming airlines to prot-driven business entities, and allowing
local governments to operate their own airlines and encouraging
competition (Jin et al., 2004).
For example, as shown in Fig. 9d, the ATNC in 1995 reached a
sizeable network with 126 airports and 601 air routes (also in
Fig. 1a & b). 1995 also marked the year with the lowest network
diameter (D = 4) and the lowest centrality index (g = 2) in history.
The majority of new lines were added to connect with Beijing,
Shanghai, and Guangzhou. For example, Beijing opened 19 new
air lines from 1985 to 1990, and 38 new air lines from 1990 to
1995, with direct links to 64.0% airports. The average path length
dropped to L = 2.335 as almost all city pairs (97.35%) could be
reached by fewer than two transfers in 1995 (Fig. 4). Meanwhile,
the core structure in 1995 was formed with 23 nodes (k = 13)
and kept relatively stable since then. Note the regional concentration of the core network in southeast China (i.e., southeast of the
HarbinBeijingChengdu line). A nationwide hub-and-spoke network was yet to take place in China, but some regional hub-andspoke networks emerged in northwest China around the hub in
Urumqi and in southwest China around the hub in Kunming. As
illustrated in Fig. 10d, this stage began the formation of hubs.
5.5. Complex network structure (since 2000)
This stage is characterized by consolidation of airlines and a
complex network structure. By 2002, all state-owned airlines were
regrouped into the Big Three: Air China, China Southern, and
China Eastern. The Big Three had a combined market share of

almost80%in 2002. Meanwhile, the CAAC also adopted a new

administrative system to further advance the market economy
and give airlines more freedom in fares, route choices and ight
scheduling. For example, the new airfare program released in
2004 allowed carriers to set fares as much as 20% above or 45% below the CAAC standard fares, with more exibility granted to especially tourism air routes and exclusive air routes. Furthermore, the
CAAC completed the transfer of ownership and management of all
airports (except for Beijing and Tibet airports) to local governments, called airport localization, by 2004. The program provided more incentives for local governments and private
investors to invest in constructing and improving airports, and
made the airports more nancially accountable and efcient
(Zhang and Yuen, 2008; Yuen and Zhang, 2009). Todays Chinas
air transport remains heavily regulated, but is on the path of liberalization and deregulation.
In 2012, as shown in Fig. 9f, the ATNC had 170 cities with airport(s) (nodes) and 1129 air routes (also in Fig. 1a and b). High connectivity, small average path length and large clustering coefcient
were the characteristics of this stage. In 2012, the beta index of the
ATNC reached 6.6, i.e., one additional airport came with an average
of 6.6 new links to other airports. Meanwhile, the average path
length reached the lowest value of 2.29 and the clustering coefcient had the value of 0.61 in history. Although only 7.86% (i.e.,
1129 out of 14365) city-pairs were directly connected in 2012,
64.9% city-pairs could be reached by only one transfer ight, and
the number rose to 98.7% by two transfers in 2012 (Fig. 4). The core
network of 26 core cities was nearly fully-connected with 91.4%
(297 out of 325) city-pairs by direct connection. There were also
two regional hub-and-spoke networks around Kunming and Urumqi. As illustrated in Fig. 10e, the 2012 ATNC exhibited smallworld network characteristics, with a relatively small average path
length and a fairly large clustering coefcient compared with a corresponding random network, but yet to possess the properties of a
scale-free network.
5.6. Emerging multi-airport systems (ongoing)
One emerging trend in the ATNC merits discussion. With rapidly-rising air transport demand, many large metropolitan areas
in China have multiple airports recently completed, under construction or at the planning stage. In a multi-airport system (as
illustrated in Fig. 10f), several airports, possibly with different
ownerships or political controls, serve commercial transport in a
metropolitan region. As of 2001, they catered to about 1 billion

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J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

total passengers, well over half of the worldwide trafc (Neufville

and Odoni, 2003). Planning for a multi-airport system in a metropolitan area faces unique challenges (Mun and Teraji, 2012). For
example, the current Beijing Capital International Airport handled

82.0 million passengers in 2012 (i.e., the 2nd largest in the world),
and is on pace to reach its design capacity of 76 million passengers
by 2015. The second international airport will be built in the
Daxing District in south Beijing and put to service in 2017.

Fig. 9. Spatial distribution of nodes and edges in the ATNC since 1952.

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J. Wang et al. / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

11

Fig. 9 (continued)

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Fig. 9 (continued)

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13

Fig. 10. Spatial model of air transport network expansion in China.

6. Conclusions
The objective of this paper is to analyze the evolution process of
the air transport network of China (ATNC) since 1930. The process
has been highlighted by the role of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) being transformed from a two-headed monster with dual roles of a regulator and operator to a lesser role of
supervision. The network analysis approach is employed to examine the temporal changes of network structure from 1930 (the earliest data with a connected network) to 2012 (the latest data
available to this study). The results suggest the ATNC has signicantly improved in connectivity based on (1) rising alpha, beta
and gamma indices, (2) dropping diameter and centre index and
(3) declining average path length and increasing clustering coefcient. The network centralization index reveals a pre-1980 centralization phase before the economic reform era, a decentralization
phase after the mid-1990s deregulation, and a uctuation phase
between. The k-core decomposition method is used to illustrate
the evolution of core network and hierarchy of the ATNC over time:
from a core network of ve cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan,
Zhengzhou and Nanjing) in the North China Plain and the Middle-Lower Basins of Yangtze in 1965 to a much expanded core network of 31 cities that were nearly fully connected (direct links
between any city pairs) and occupied the southeast half of China
in 2012.
Inspired by the classic transportation development model by
Taaffe et al. (1963) that was based on surface transportation, a spatial development model is proposed in this paper to conceptualize
the evolution of ATNCs network structure. The model

characterizes the evolution of the non-planar network as six

stages: (1) scattered development, (2) trunk line connection, (3)
circular linkage, (4) hub formation, (5) a complex network structure, and (6) emerging multi-airport systems. By the end of the
study period (2012), the ATNC possessed some properties of a
small-world network with two regional hub-and-spoke networks
around Kunming and Urumqi. The model also advances an earlier
model for the Southeast Asia air transport by OConnor (1995) that
focused on air hubs.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support
from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
No. 41001082), Programme of Bingwei Excellent Young Scientists
of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources
Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2011RC201,
J. Wang), and a visiting professorship at Yunnan University of
Finance and Economics in 2013 (F. Wang).
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