Research Progress of Rural Classification in Europe and Its Enlightenment to China
Abstract：
With the rapid economic and social development and the continuous promotion of new
urbanization, China’s rural areas are increasingly transforming and restructuring and showing a
development trend of multiple changes. It is urgent for the academic community to conduct a new
cognition of the concept and classification of rural areas, so as to steadily promote the implementation
of the national rural revitalization strategy. European rural research is relatively early and has a mature
methodological system. Learning from its experience and lessons will help to expand the perspective of
rural cognition and provide new ideas for China’s current rural development. Firstly, from the perspective
of rural concept discrimination, this paper summarizes the new breakthrough in rural space relations,
rural functional elements and rural space concept. Secondly, the rural connotation is integrated into the
existing rural classification of European, and the rural classification cases of typical countries are elaborated
in detail. Spatial typology is analyzed from the perspectives of geographic landscape gradient and urbanrural continuum, performance typology is discussed from the perspectives of changing countryside, multifunctional countryside and heterogeneous countryside, and multi-dimensional typology is expressed from
perspectives of multi-spatial gradient combined with performance and dynamic space combined with
performance. Finally, this paper provides suggestions on the current rural research and development in
China from three aspects of “theoretical concept-type identity-development and promotion”, and promotes
the transformation and spatial optimization of rural development in the new era.