Abstract

“Salt and copper make Yunnan powerful”，Salt plays a very important role in the history of Yunnan.Old Shiyang town is one of the main salt productions areas of Yunnan province.Pondering the importance of salt in the history of Shiyang's urbanization，the starting point of this thesis is salt.

In the period of salt prosperity urbanization，old Shiyang town is a salt society rather than an agricultural society.In this society，there are profession division of labor basing on the well salt production.The salt market has formed which also bring about the prosperous of the economy，politics and culture，all of these make Shiyang become the center of local area.Salt production also bring about population mobility which can be presented by the diversity of religion，food and custom.

In the period of salt decline urbanization，the Shiyang's prosperity has disappeared because of the reducing salt productivity，salt distribution shrinking and government market closing policy.The livelihood has transformed from salt production to multivariate production；the salt industry organization has disappeared；the mobility of people has subsided.

In the period of salt revival urbanization，old Shiyang town retrieves salt culture to revival local society.Local people take the opportunity of the project“Historical and cultural towns” of Yunnan province to have formed the tourism development rout.Populations begin to flow frequency as well as the exchange between different cultures.In this period，local people and local government spare no effort to get high level of urbanization.

From the perspective of urbanization history and salt，the author wants to find out some basic elements that influence the process of Shiyang town's urbanization.These elements are resource，market，population movement and the role of state.

Resource Element.Salt plays a very important role in the process of Shiyang's urbanization.The procedure of urbanization can be changed as salt industry changing.From the beginning of salt resource exploration，the nature resource begins to change into economic resource，which brings about the multifold effects such as popular gatherings，cultural integration and market expansion.When the salt had not been the economic resource，the urbanization of Shiyang relies on the strategy of salt history and cultural tourism，which view salt as cultural resource rather than economic resource.In fact it is an interaction between culture and economy.

Market Element.The author views the market not only as the pure free economic element but also as the fusion of economy，politics，culture and even the symbol capital.Pondering the development of Shiyang market，politics and culture elements control the exchange of salt resource.In the traditional age，the salt's sale region and sale price are not decided by market but by the conspiracy between state power and local benefit.With the coming of tourism era that is a generating process of cultural market as a fact，salt plays a role again as the capital of culture and symbol.The period，the market is mainly the process of construction and generation of cultural market.

Population Mobility.The author aims to emphasize the transformation from rural people to urban people.This means that the population movement and population diversity are an index of urbanization，which can dialogue with，and supplement to the former researches.When retrieve the history of old Shiyang town，the longterm immigration，the short-term marketing and the tourism have promoted people's information sharing and culture exchange.The old town has become vivid as population mobility.

The Role of State.The urbanization of old Shiyang town has inserted with country's role，which means that when we considering the local urbanization，we must pay much attention to the state system and state discourse.The different periods of Shiyang's urbanization have presented different roles of state-from interaction between officials and people to state concealment and then to state led.

Key words：Urbanization；Old Shiyang Town；Salt；Market；Population Mobility