Visual identification and quantitative assessment of historic urban landscape: taking Taiyuan, an inland traditional city as an example

The historic urban landscape (HUL) concept is a protection concept proposed for the "continuous" change characteristics and "layered" presentation of cultural landscapes in cities in time series. It is a new way for traditional cities to face modern development. This article takes the inland traditional city of Taiyuan as an example, by crawling and sorting the historical relics in Taiyuan, and using the combination of AHP-GIS to visually identify the historical and cultural landscape space of Taiyuan and quantitatively evaluate the value of historical and cultural landscapes. It is concluded that the historical landscape characteristics of Taiyuan urban area are divided into historical and cultural corridor spaces with "dual core" patches. In the context of the “Belt and Road” strategy, the evaluation results can provide an intuitive scientific basis for further cultural response and planning development of Taiyuan. In addition, the research results prove that the AHP-GIS method is practical and effective for the evaluation of urban historical landscape under the concept of HUL.