The small towns influenced by the long-term impact of the industrial and mining industries have formed distinctive spatial morphology. A systematic exploration of their spatial form characteristics can make up for the deficiencies of the existing research on spatial form, enrich the theory of urban spatial form, and provide theoretical support for the planning practice of such special towns. Therefore, this paper constructs a theoretical framework of structure–region–boundary and uses methods such as space syntax, shape index, and compactness to comprehensively analyze the spatial morphology gene types of 28 small industrial and mining towns in terms of structure, region, and boundary, and draw the corresponding gene maps. The research results show that in terms of structural genes, the transportation structure of small towns can be classified into grid, branch-shaped, and hybrid types; the relationship between mountains and towns can be categorized as mountain-encircled, mountain-fringed, mountain-adjacent, and no-mountain types; and the relationship between water and towns can be divided into simple intersection, intersection along the short side, intersection along the long side, compound intersection, and no-river types. The common types are grid, mountain-encircled, and no rivers. In terms of regional genes, the texture of small towns can be classified as self-organized, planned, and hybrid types; the public space of streets can be divided into high, medium, and low according to accessibility; the form of industrial and mining processing areas can be classified as terminal, marginal, independent, and central types. Among these, the hybrid, low-accessibility, and terminal types are the most common. In terms of boundary genes, the boundary morphology of most industrial and mining small towns is finger-shaped and uniform.
Li et al. (Sat,) studied this question.