Where to Revitalize, and How? A Rural Typology Zoning for China

Under China’s Rural Revitalization program, it is essential to accurately determine the prospects of revival or decay for the villages alongside specific goals and paths, which existing literature lacks a systematic coverage. Based on rural typology theories, this paper proposes an analytical framework to determine the type of village revitalization from the perspective of factor endowments. Utilizing five groups of 45 indicators characterizing the natural, socio-economic, and cultural endowments of villages, this paper applies the Self-Organizing Mapping neural network to cluster 2,388,579 natural villages in 48,322 townships across the nation into the four basic types of rural revitalization as directed by China’s Strategic Plan for Rural Revitalization (2018–2022): (1) Agglomerative Promotion, (2) Suburban Annexation, (3) Special Endowment-based Development, and (4) Out-migration and Relocation. The results of cluster analysis are spatially visualized to form a national rural revitalization zoning map at the township level, the first attempt to our knowledge. We conclude the paper with discussions on the revitalization paths of the various types of villages, particularly the seemingly gloomy prospect of 2/3 of the villages falling into the fourth category, and ways to interpret the deterministic nature of the conclusion. The paper expands the understanding of rural typology to a national scale with both innovative categorization processes and strong linkages to revitalization practices.