As a widespread way of optimizing resource allocation， the interregional flowing of economic factors is the micro foundation of the formation of agglomerations or that of cities. Based on a general equilibrium analysis of economic agents' location choices， new economic geography attractively reveals the endogenous mechanism of agglomeration， showing that factor flowing based on microeconomic spontaneous behavior is the key to generate and strengthen the agglomerations. However， much of the new economic geography literature assumes myopic economic agents， that is， the economic agents are assumed to ignore the future， basing their migration choices on current wage differences alone. This is not consistent with the rational expectations and forward-looking optimizing behavior of economic agents in the reality. In fact， factor flowing involves cost. Economic agents are interested not only in currently available returns but also in the returns they expect in the future. The role of expectations turns out to be crucial in their decisions for migration. This paper reviews the literature integrating the behavior of rational forward-looking theory with the new economic geography analysis. We find that by modifying the basic micro-foundation hypothesis of macro-heterogeneity， i.e. factor mobility rules， the new economic geography with forward-looking expectations shows that forward-looking expectations have an impact on the evolution of agglomerations. On the one hand， the migration decisions of forward-looking agents directly influence where the economic elements flow and thus where the agglomerations would emerge. On the other hand， the inclusion of forward-looking behavior partially affects the long-term stability of local stable equilibria in the new economic geography as ad hoc myopic adjustment is replaced by full-fledged forward-looking dynamics. Whether the expectations (initial beliefs) as opposed to history （initial endowments） matter for the long-run spatial distribution of economic activities depends on how much agents care about the future， the parameter values of trade cost and factor mobility as well. It is worth noting that under certain circumstances expectations can weaken， even reverse， the lock-in effect of the historically-inherited size advantage of the bigger regions， which is revealing to the study on the spatial agglomeration of economic activities in China characterized by strong government intervention during our transformation from planned economy to market economy. A policy can be an endogenous driving force of individual economic behavior by affecting the individual expectations. It can be a forceful agent to realize agglomerations in certain areas by ″self-fulfilling expectations. ″At the same time， government policies have a limited impact on the economic system. Whether the impact can turn into an endogenous driving force of agglomeration and be adopted by the system depends on the law of agglomeration as well. That is， in an economic system affected by government behavior， the formation and development of agglomerations depend on the effective interplay of market mechanism and government policies.  The integration of forward-looking expectations with the new economic geography analysis reinforces people's subjective initiative in economic activities. Theoretically， the new economic geography incorporating forward-looking agents perfects the micro-foundation hypothesis of macroscopic heterogeneity in space. It shows that economic agents are not passively reactive to economic circumstance|rather， they exert influence on the future economic system by forward-looking expectations. Methodically， it extends a two-dimensional perspective of ″micro-space″ to a three-dimensional research perspective of ″micro-space-time,″ exhibiting a full-fledged dynamics analysis partially replacing ad hoc dynamics. Furthermore，adding forward-looking expectations into new economic geography does enrich the theory by incorporating government policy as an endogenous driving force of agglomeration. It is helpful for a better understanding of the evolution of agglomerations with government intervention in China， a country with an imperfect economic system．  The highlight of this paper is that it is the first to review relevant studies on the new economic geography incorporating forward-looking expectations. Based on that， it summarizes how expectation works on the evolution of the agglomeration in China characterized by government intervention， in particular， how expectation makes it possible to turn government policies into an endogenous force of agglomeration. Thus， the paper perfects the explanatory power of new economic geography in analyzing the agglomeration in an incomplete market economy. This has significant implications for the evolution of our government-directed industrial agglomeration．