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Highlights: A new method is proposed to quantitatively assess the equilibrium between primary education facilities and primary students from the perspective of the living circle. The spatial equilibrium of primary education services across Zhangjiakou City was evaluated based on four living circle scenarios. We establish a site selection path to optimize the spatial equilibrium of primary education based on the living circle. Primary education services are a key component of public infrastructure. These services exert significant impacts on public activity, sustainability, and healthy socio-economic development. This research applies the concept of a 'living circle' in order to evaluate the spatial equilibrium of education services in existing primary schools. This has enabled equilibrium planning schemes to be proposed for primary schools as well as the promotion and construction of livable and defensible living spaces. This area remains a key issue, however, one that urgently needs to be addressed in terms of the layout of public infrastructural services to facilitate livable living space construction. Thus, from the perspective of livable and defensible living space construction, the aim of this study was to construct a primary education equalization assessment method based on the walking living circle method. An equilibrium index was also designed based on the number of primary school students; this was then combined with the standard construction of new primary schools to optimize the spatial equilibrium of these education services. The city of Zhangjiakou City was then used as a case study; the spatial equilibrium of primary education services was evaluated across four living circle scenarios (i.e., 15 min, 20 min, 25 min, and 30 min). Results reveal that the city of Zhangjiakou currently offers dramatically spatially negative non-equilibrium primary education services (i.e., supply < demand) across four living circle scenarios, but most notably in rural areas away from urban areas and towns, especially in the counties of Shangyi, Chicheng, Chongli, Kangbao, and Guyuan. It is interesting to note that all living circle scenarios could enable positive non-equilibrium primary education services (i.e., supply > demand), mainly within the urban districts of Qiaodong, Xuanhua, Qiaoxi, Wanquan, and Xiahuayuan. It is also clear that equilibrium living circles are distributed across all counties. A spatial optimization proposal for primary school services should therefore be presented that alleviates the issues inherent to non-equilibrium primary education services. The results of this study offer a number of suggestions for education service optimization across the city of Zhangjiakou as well as for other cities in China. We also provide further scientific foundations for research on livable space and defensible unit construction as well as the spatial equilibrium evaluation of other public infrastructural service facilities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]