Liang Wu , Zengzheng Li, Zhentao Gu, Fei Li

Based on the Statistical Classification of the Digital Economy and Its Core Industries (2021) and considering the characteristics of the Yellow River Basin Economic Belt, this paper selects 25 secondary indicators from 5 dimensions (digital infrastructure, digital industrialization, industrial digitization, digital innovation and agricultural modernization). A scientific and practical evaluation index system of digital economy development is constructed to accurately measure the digital economy development level of the Yellow River Basin Economic Zone. The entropy weight TOPSIS method was used to calculate the comprehensive evaluation index of the digital economy development level of nine provinces and regions in the Yellow River Basin Economic Belt from 2012 to 2022. On this basis, ArcGIS software is used to draw the visualization map of the digital economic development level of the provinces and regions in each year, measure the relative gap of the digital economic development level with the help of Dagum Gini coefficient method, and portray the absolute gap and dynamic evolution characteristics of the digital economic development level based on the kernel density estimation method. The main conclusions are obtained: 1. Digital economy differences: the Yellow River Basin has significant differences in the level of digital economy, with the east leading and the west lagging behind, affected by multiple factors. 2. Development trend: the digital economy continues to improve from 2012 to 2022, showing a trend of polarization, with the spatial gap gradually narrowing but the differences widening. 3. Changes in the inter-regional differences: the gap in the upstream and downstream digital economy increases and then decreases, and the internal inequalities are decreasing year by year but the widening of inter-regional differences is the main feature.