Objective  At present, the unique regional and diverse cultural landscape of traditional cave dwelling settlements in the Loess Plateau area is gradually showing the characteristics of islanding, fragmentation, assimilation and ecological imbalance. The landscape pattern and ecological environment of traditional cave dwelling settlements have been subject to constructive and exploitative destruction, and some intangible cultural landscape is also on the verge of extinction. In order to correct the problems such as lack of individuality, image convergence and disappearance of regional cultural landscape of traditional cave dwelling settlements in the Loess Plateau area, it is necessary to accurately identify the characteristics of regional human settlement landscape.

Methods  Based on the theory of local knowledge in anthropology, this research puts forward relevant methods and paths for mining local knowledge of traditional cave dwelling settlements, and takes the landscape of 32 cave dwelling settlements in northern Shaanxi as an example to identify and extract the local knowledge contained in the layout location, spatial form, courtyard layout, construction skill and folk culture of such settlements.

Results  Local knowledge of cave dwelling landscape in northern Shaanxi can be divided into explicit local knowledge and tacit local knowledge. Explicit local knowledge can be summarized into the following three points: 1) The location layout forms of traditional cave dwelling settlements mainly include the following four types: on the loess tableland, against the cliff and near the river, by the water, and along the road; 2) most cave dwellings located in the loess gully area are distributed in the form of branches, most cave dwellings in the Loess Plateau area are distributed in the form of clusters, most cave dwellings in the slope section of loess gully are distributed in the form of scattered spots, and most cave dwellings built around public buildings such as ancestral halls, temples or stage stages are distributed in the form of circles; 3) in northern Shaanxi, the local layout of cliff cave dwellings built on the edge of hillsides or gullies can be divided into four types: straight line shape, “U” shape, broken line shape and “L” shape. There are four types of local independent cave courtyards in the loess terrace area: one-section compound courtyard, two-section compound courtyard, three-section compound courtyard and four-section compound courtyard. The tacit local knowledge of cave dwelling landscape in northern Shaanxi can be summarized as follows. 1) The technical procedure for construction of cliff cave dwellings includes the early preparation stage, the middle stage of cave excavation, and the later stage of perfection. The technical procedure for construction of independent cave dwellings includes the early preparation stage, the middle of main body construction, and the auxiliary stage. 2) The local knowledge of the folk culture landscape in northern Shaanxi is mainly reflected in such aspects as festival etiquette, production skills, arts and crafts, food culture and traditional culture. Finally, the local knowledge of the traditional cave dwelling settlement landscape in northern Shaanxi is divided into 2 categories, 6 major categories, 27 middle categories and 65 small categories, and accordingly, a local knowledge graph of the traditional cave dwelling settlement landscape in northern Shaanxi is constructed.

Conclusion  Based on the mining of local knowledge and the construction of local knowledge graph of traditional cave dwelling settlements, the following conclusions are drawn. 1) Strengthen the overall protection and continuation of the landscape pattern of traditional cave dwelling settlements in northern Shaanxi. 2) Rationally control the spatial form of the built area of traditional cave dwelling settlements, and set the development boundary of cave dwelling settlements according to local conditions. 3) Attach importance to the interventional protection of the local landscape style of traditional cave dwelling settlements. 4) Actively explore the close relationship between the traditional concept of traditional cave building techniques and contemporary construction practice, and rationally think about the change of traditional construction techniques and modern techniques. 5) Intangible cultural heritage items with significant historical, cultural and artistic values in traditional cave dwelling settlements should be declared and included in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China for protection in a timely manner. Through the construction of local knowledge graph of traditional cave dwelling settlement landscape in northern Shaanxi, this research hopes to form the basic vocabulary and logic of the protection and inheritance design of the characteristic historical features of traditional cave dwelling settlements, so as to avoid the disappearance and disconnection of local construction knowledge of traditional villages. Meanwhile, the research also aims to make local knowledge a type of regional landscape construction knowledge that can be widely spread and applied, so as to provide ideas for the characteristic development of traditional local settlements in northern Shaanxi.