Abstract

An evaluation indexing system based on the theory of coordination was constructed to estimate the urban carrying capacity (UCC) of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) region with four subsystems: social, economic, environmental, and transportation. This indexing system revealed the interactions between “supply” and “demand.” The improved entropy method was adopted to calculate the weight of 17 indicators and evaluate the comprehensive UCC of 13 cities in the BTH region using data covering the period 1990–2018. The results showed that two cities, Tangshan (UCC of − 0.0021) and Handan (UCC of − 0.0009), were “overloaded” in 2018, while the other 11 cities were “loadable.” The social and transportation subsystems played the most crucial roles in the evaluation. Based on the results, Baoding achieved the highest UCC, while that of Tangshan was the lowest. The results could play a significant role in decision-making relating to the sustainable development of the BTH region. Three policy implications are proposed based on these findings: (i) the efficiency of resource utilization and scientific allocation should be enhanced and industrial optimization and upgrading should be promoted, (ii) the coordinated development of urbanization and environment in the region should be improved, and (iii) the integration of traffic decongestion measures should be faster, and industrial docking systems should be enhanced.