Abstract:Competitiveness is an important guarantee for the sustainable development of characteristic towns. It is of practical significance to study how technological and institutional innovations enhance the competitiveness of characteristic towns from the perspective of innovation synergy. On the premise of clarifying the role of innovation synergy on promoting the development of characteristic towns, the self-organization characteristics of the characteristic town system is analyzed and the essence of the competitive evolution of characteristic towns is revealed. Then, the functional mechanism of enhancing competitive power of characteristic towns is explored, based on which, the relevant countermeasures for the improvement of the competitiveness of characteristic towns are proposed. It is showed that technological innovation and institutional innovation are the great driving forces for the improvement of the competitiveness of characteristic towns. They cooperate with each other to promote the industrial, cultural and ecological competitiveness of characteristic towns to evolve and make a difference over the life cycle. The three competitivenesses must be pushed to ascend and promote each other on the basis of enhancing innovation drive. Then, the overall competitiveness of the featured town will be improved as a result.