An empirical study of Thailand cities' color landscapes

Chunliu Gao; Javed Iqbal

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17558

An empirical study of Thailand cities' color landscapes

Heliyon. 2023 Jun 24;9(6):e17558. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17558. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Authors

Chunliu Gao^{1

2

3}, Javed Iqbal^{4

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ School of Culture and Tourism, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475001, China.
² Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development & Collaborative Innovation Center on Yellow River Civilization Jointly Built by Henan Province and Ministry of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475001, China.
³ Laboratory of the Yellow River Cultural Heritage, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475001, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Process, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China.
⁵ Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Haripur, Haripur, 22620, Pakistan.
⁶ China-Pakistan Joint Research Centre on Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Abstract

Color landscapes are important parts of cultural landscapes. Cities are cradles of human spiritual and material civilizations. As a city changes, its unique cultural context also changes. One of the most significant features of a city is its color landscapes, which help to convey the culture and spirit of a city in a deeply intuitive way. The color landscapes not only shape a city image, highlights a city personality, and transmits cultural information but it is also an important aid in helping people to perceive regional cultural values and experience folk customs. With these concepts in mind, the researchers of this study have selected three typical tourist cities in Thailand as the basis for an empirical study. Three main findings are discussed: (1) Thailand's city color landscapes tend to consist of pure colors with high saturation, and colorful colors have been integrated into Thai people's daily life, which reflect Thailand's different history and culture. (2) The clearer the attributes of the color landscape, the more pertinent they are to the images of the tourist destination. (3) The geographical environment, local religious beliefs, and tourists' expectations are the main motivating factors in choosing the main colors of a city. City color landscapes have become an important part of Thailand's city tourism "industry" and would promote the development of sustainable tourism.

Keywords: Color landscape; Color planning; Cultural landscape; Thailand; Tourism.