The Grand Canal of China, as a traffic artery in ancient China, has exerted profound influence on the development of the cities, towns and rural settlements along it. Now, with China's rapid urbanization, numerous settlements along the canal are confronted with problems like slow cognition of the cultural heritage, loss of the local culture and damage of historical relics. Hence, research on the protection and updating of the settlement space along the canal is in urgent need. This paper, targeting the settlement space along the Grand Canal Tianjin Section, adopts such research methods as the Historical GIS analytical method, the kernel density estimation method and the average nearest-neighbor method to quantitatively analyze the evolution stage and distribution characteristics of the settlement space along the Grand Canal Tianjin Section from the perspective of cultural relics to reveal the in-situ rules of evolution of the settlement space. The research result indicates that the spatial-temporal evolution of the settlement space can be divided into five such periods of the settlements along the canal as the pre-canal period, the rudimentary period, the development period, the mature period and the transformation period. Each period features different cultural relics and settlement distribution patterns. The research shows that the natural geographical environment, the grain transportation projects and management systems, the wasteland opening, grain growing and military defense policies, the agricultural, commercial and economic growth and the migration and folk culture are the influencing factors of the spatial evolution of the settlement space along the Grand Canal Tianjin Section.
