Spatiotemporal Differentiation and Influencing Factors of Overseas Chinese Architectural Heritage: A Case Study of Minnan, China

The Minnan region in southern Fujian, China, comprising Quanzhou, Xiamen, and Zhangzhou, is one of China’s major traditional qiaoxiang (overseas Chinese hometown) regions. This study develops a spatial database of 682 Minnan Overseas Chinese Architectural Heritage (MOCAH) sites, divides their formation into four historical periods—Qing Dynasty (pre-1912), Early Republican Period (1912–1936), Wartime Republican Period (1937–1948), and Early PRC Period (1949–late 1970s)—and applies GIS-based spatial and statistical methods to examine their spatiotemporal differentiation and influencing factors. MOCAH formation was concentrated in 1912–1936, declined sharply in 1937–1948, and partially recovered after 1949. MOCAH remained significantly clustered across all periods and exhibited a pronounced coastal orientation. High-density areas expanded along the Xiamen–Quanzhou coast before contracting toward Quanzhou during wartime and subsequently re-emerging as multiple local high-density cores after 1949. Among the selected natural environmental and transport accessibility factors, distance to ports showed the greatest explanatory power, while nonlinear enhancement was observed for its interactions with distance to roads and railways and with distance to rivers. At the county level, MOCAH density was strongly and positively correlated with population density and overseas Chinese remittances, but more weakly correlated with ancestral hall and temple density.