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With the continuous progress of Chinese urbanization, the acceleration of urban spatial expansion trend has become a typical urban phenomenon. Under the influence of this trend, there is a "third area" which ranging between urban and rural areas, called urban fringe. It is a cluster of many forces such as economy, politics, culture and so on. The functional areas of urban fringe, which in forms of rural and urban land uses, has grown in strength. On the other hand, urban fringe outer space has expanded rapidly and become larger and larger,which can also bring a lot of problems.Thus increasingly geography workers pay more attention on urban fringe.Since the late 1980s, China has carried out the research in urban fringe.In the more than 20 years time,though the urban fringe research, which involves its characteristics, spatial structure and classification, evolutionary mechanisms and trends, planning and management, land use and management, industrial integration and development, landscape ecology and afforestation, and various social issues is abundant, the research on the urban fringe function can not be carried out widely. Because of this,the function research, which is one of the earliest urban fringe research is still in a basic description level while lacking of comprehensive systematic studies. So this can preserve the defects of the urban fringe’theory and cause widespread concern in geography. Affecting on the city and the functional area, functions of the urban fringe, such as economy, politics, humanities and people’s livelihood, are very important and they still have some problems. So a system, in-depth study on the urban fringe functions is good for a complement of the urban fringe theory and also gives an important reference on the development of urban fringe.Based on the conception of urban fringe functions, this paper discussed the scientific classification of Wuhan urban fringe functions, reviewed its 500 years’evolution, and pointed out its periodic dominant function. It not only distinguished the classification of the function firstly, but also provided theoretical reference to specific study of the function. Meanwhile, beginning with the evolution and classification of Wuhan urban fringe functions, the paper served Wuhan’s functions as the research log, It is the supplement of the urban morphology theory, and developed a creative demonstration of urban fringe research.Based on the main five aspects of evolution, types, characteristics, status and optimization of the urban fringe in Wuhan, the research on domestic and international urban fringe and its function, the map survey, field research and observation as well as the analysis of quantitative data, the paper proposed the transitional model between the urban and rural areas, defined the fringe area of Wuhan city based on administrative regions and surroundings, pointed the characteristics of fringe area function, the principles for identifying types of urban fringe, and evaluated its functions. In addition, the characteristics of urban fringe function of Wuhan as a breakthrough, combined with marginal function analysis, the author put forward measures to improve the function of Wuhan urban fringe.
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