Spatiotemporal Evolution and Multidimensional Drivers of Modern Circulation System Development in Chinese Cities

Developing an efficient and well-functioning modern circulation system is essential to building a unified national market and advancing high-quality economic development. Using city-level panel data for 286 Chinese cities from 2012 to 2022， this study employs the entropy-weight method， standard deviational ellipse analysis， spatial Markov chain analysis， and a CatBoost-SHAP framework to examine the spatiotemporal evolution of modern circulation system development and its multidimensional driving factors. The results show that： （1） Development levels rose overall， albeit with fluctuations， and exhibited a persistent east-central-west gradient， with eastern cities leading， central cities following， and western cities lagging； （2） Spatial clustering was significant， with pronounced high-high and low-low agglomerations； （3） Residents’ income and digital connectivity made relatively large contributions to model predictions， while urbanization， digital finance， and educational resources displayed nonlinear associations with development levels. Interactions among multiple factors further increased the explanatory power for spatial variation.