Against the background of “One Belt One Road” initiative，the Yangtze River Delta Region（hereinafter called the “YRDR”）is expected to play a leading role in promoting this great national strategy（Chen，2015）. Scholars argue that members of the YRDR such as Shanghai（Wang，2015），Ningbo（Dai，2014）and cities of Jiangsu Province（Yang，2015）are expected to take advantage of the opportunity to seek boost in future development.

The YRDR is in coastal area in east China which consists of Shanghai City，Jiangsu Province，Zhejiang Province and part of Anhui Province，covering about more than 210740 square kilometres’ area and a total population of 154 million excluding the part of Anhui Province.

As early as 1970s，Jean Gottmann（1976）in his paper Megalopolitan Systems around the World identified the potential sixth Megalopolitan area in the world centered on Shanghai，although few people realized that at that time. To date，the YRDR has became the most developed area of China，playing an important role in the development of Chinese cities and economy in littoral areas of China，and even in the development of Asia-Pacific Region（Gu et al .，2007）. In 2010 scholars contend that the Yangtze River Delta has become the sixth largest urban agglomeration in the world（Fang et al .，2011）.

For a long time，the area of Yangtze River Delta as well as the scope of related research or statistical data had been concentrated on the old or traditional region which only encompasses Shanghai，Jiangsu and Zhejiang. However，in September 2014，the State Council released a document officially placing Anhui Province as a member of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration（State Council of China，2014）. In June 2016，the central government issued the planning for the development of the YRDR Urban Agglomeration，further identifying the participation and position of Anhui in the YRDR（National Development and Reform Commission，2016）.

Anhui Province borders Jiangsu Province to the east，and Zhejiang Province to the southeast. At the end of 2015 the population of Anhui was about 61436000，and the urbanization rate was 50.5%. Anhui’s GDP per capita in 2015 was 35997 RMB yuan，which equals 5779 US dollars（APBS，2016）.

Apparently，it can be identified from the figures showed above that Anhui’s economic development is far behind its neighbours in terms of either the total GDP or GDP per capita. What’s more，Anhui’s proportion of the first，second and third industry was 11.2∶51.5∶37.3（APBS，2016），which indicated that the province was still in the early or middle stage of the process of industrialization compared with other parts of China（Yi，2010）. As a matter of fact，Anhui has been positive to join YRDR since early 1980s. But the significant economic gap between Anhui and the YRDR might be the biggest obstacle in blocking Anhui’s participating.

On the other hand，however，Anhui has its advantages of location and resource（Jiang，2010）；science and education foundation，associated industries（Qin，2015）. Some scholars also contend Anhui shares the same regional culture and common values with the YRDR，which is also an positive factor in helping Anhui’s participation（Guo and Zhu，2012）. Thus，Anhui’s integration into the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration can not only promotes the faster and better economic development of Anhui Province，but also promotes the integration and development of the YRDR（Zhao，2015）.

Nevertheless，due to regional disparity，even though the policies have identified Anhui as a member of the “club”，the argument about the role and position of it in the YRDR still exist. For instance，Yao，who is the founder of the concept of “urban agglomeration” of China，contends that only some more relatively developed parts of Anhui could be absorbed into the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration，but not the entire Anhui Province，because the urban agglomeration is a developed region with sound transportation network（Yao et al. ，2015）.

Therefore，based on the argument of Yao et al .（2015），this study focuses on addressing two research questions：first，which areas of Anhui are expected to have bigger advantage during their integration into the YRDR？Second，how will spatial structure of Anhui Urban Agglomeration evolve in the process？ 9tygqrbDtpd8iWkiK5cgxxCbScXXH58RLKrMngy1yorM2fQ1j7LvDRZJAIE3zp9v