Abstract
Northwest China is one of the seven major geographical regions in China, including Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. Since the implementation of a series of national policies such as the western development, the economy of the provinces and autonomous regions in Northwest China has been greatly developed. But the imbalance in the development process is also very prominent. Through the analysis of the factors that affect the transfer of the center of gravity and the impact of the shift on the region, we can explore a better path of regional coordinated development. This paper selects five northwest provinces, according to the center of gravity transfer model, studies the changes of the economic center of gravity from 2000 to 2018, and uses the Theil index method to calculate the difference degree of regional economy. The results show that: the development of Northwest China is not balanced, the economic gap between provinces is large. The economic center of gravity moves to the southeast and deviates from the geographical center of Northwest China. There is a positive relationship between the change of gravity center and the size of economic difference.