中文摘要：

以长江中游经济带的鄱阳湖生态经济区、皖江城市带、武汉城市圈、长株潭城市群各地级市为研究单元,以1995-2011年常住人口总数、总GDP和人均GDP为测度指标,采用标准差、变异系数、泰尔指数、空间自相关等方法,在ArcGIS及GeoDA等软件的支持下,从时空角度分析了研究区域经济差异及其演变特征。结果表明：从时间演变特征看,长江中游经济带总体发展水平不断上升,绝对经济差异在不断扩大,且这种扩大趋势从2000年后逐步增强;相对经济差异不显著,4个经济区中1995-2003年武汉城市圈经济相对发展最快,鄱阳湖生态经济区发展最慢,2003-2011年皖江城市带发展最快,武汉城市圈发展速度有所下降;各经济区内部经济差异不断扩大,其中武汉城市圈内部经济差异最大。从空间演变特征看,区域内经济发展的空间差异逐渐加大,空间集聚趋势越来越弱,扩散效应逐渐增强,高水平发展的城市出现极化现象,中心城市的辐射带动作用不强。交通区位、区域政策、中心城市的联动、资源禀赋与产业结构是引起区域经济差异的主要原因。

英文摘要：

Taking the Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone, the Urban Zone along the Wanjiang, the Wuhan City Circle and the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Urban Agglomeration in the Yangtze Midstream Economic Zone （YMEZ） as research units, the paper analyses the spatial and temporal economic difference and its evolution in the studied area. In the paper the total permanent resident population from 1995 to 2011, GDP, and per-capita GDP are taken as measurement indexes, the methods of standard deviation, coefficient of variation, Theil index, and spatial autocorrelation are used, and softwares of ArcGIS and GeoDA are employed to support the study. The result shows that the general economic development level of the YMEZ is continually rising, but the overall absolute regional economic differences are expanding, and such expansion trend has been gradually being enhanced since 2000. The relative economic differences in the YMEZ are not significant. The economic development of the Wuhan City Circle was relatively the fastest in the four major economic zones above-mentioned from 1995 to 2003, which of the Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone was the slowest in the same period. However, the economic development of the urban zone along the Wanjiang became the fastest from 2003 to 2011, while the development speed of the Wuhan City Circle decreased during that time. The internal economic difference in all the four economic zones is still expanding, and that in Wuhan City Circle is the biggest. It can be seen from the perspective of spatial evolution that the spatial difference of economic development in the region keeps increasing, the spatial concentration trend keeps weakening, while the diffusion effect is gradually increasing, the the polarization phenomena appear in high level development cities, and the leading role of the central cities is not obvious. The main reasons that cause the economic differences are the influences of traffic location, regional policies, the development of central cities, resource endowments and indust