Characteristics of rural settlements

Rural settlements, also known as rural settlements, are settlements in which the inhabitants take agriculture as the main form of economic activity, and refer to all forms of human settlements (i.e., villages) in rural areas, including all villages and rural market towns that have a small number of industrial enterprises and commercial service facilities but do not meet the standards of established towns. In agricultural or forested areas, villages are usually fixed; in pastoral areas, there is a mixture of sedentary settlements, seasonal settlements, and nomadic tent settlements; and in fishery areas, there are boat villages with boats as living quarters.

Generally speaking, rural settlements have farmhouses, livestock sheds, barns, yards, roads, canals, green spaces next to houses, and ancillary facilities for specific environments and specialized production conditions. Small villages generally have no service functions, while central villages have small stores, small medical clinics, post offices, schools and other living services and cultural facilities. With the development of modern urbanization, urbanized villages, which are city-like rural settlements, have also emerged on the outskirts of cities.

The criteria for the division of cities and villages are very different in different countries around the world, such as the Federal Republic of Germany and France, which stipulate that settlements with a population of less than 2,000 are considered villages, and the United States and Mexico, which have a division of less than 2,500; and most of the Soviet Union **** and the state, which stipulate that settlements with a population of less than 2,000 and with more than one-third or half of the population living in agriculture are considered villages.
1988 Chinese academics refer to settlements with a permanent population of less than 2,500 and a non-agricultural population of more than 30% as villages.Since the late 1970s, the vigorous development of township and village enterprises in China's rural areas has profoundly changed the traditional characteristics of settlements, and rural settlements have become not only places for people to live, live, rest, and carry out political and cultural activities, but also places to engage in production and labor. The distribution, form and internal structure of rural settlements reflect the comprehensive relationship between human activities and the natural environment.