Abstract: The enterprise is an important subject of the economic space, and its location selection determines the spatial pattern and competitiveness of the regional economy. As an economic hub of the industrial transformation, the four provinces of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River were selected for this study. This paper firstly demonstrated the spatial pattern of the number of newly established manufacturing enterprises in the region from 1999 to 2013 was based ona global spatial autocorrelation and the density analysis. Then the locational factors behind the spatial patterns were examined based on multiple linear regressions. The results showed that:(1) during the period from 1998 to 2013, the manufacturing industry in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River demonstrated a spatial pattern of decentralized distribution. The trend of the urban agglomeration before 2008 spread to the remote cities after 2008; (2) before 2008, the spatial pattern of the manufacturing enterprises in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River was affected by the adequacy of the local labor force. After 2008, the labor force factor was no longer the dominant factor, and the number of regional government subsidies began to affect the location choice. Although the enterprises concentrated in some cities under the impact of localization economies, labor and policy factors also affected the location and distribution of the enterprises. As a result, in a much larger scale, manufacturing enterprises in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River are distributed in a scattering manner in almost all the districts and counties. This scattering distribution cannot respond effectively to the economic demands in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta where the enterprises need to cope with the global uncertainties to reduce transaction costs through a well-planned and highly concentrated enterprise distribution pattern.

Key words: manufacturing enterprise, manufacturing site selection, spatial restructuring, locational factor