From Dispersed Resources to Continuous Corridors: Route Integration Methods and Strategies for Rural Cultural Scenic Byways in the Southern Taihang Mountains

Mountainous rural cultural heritage remains poorly connected within tourism networks, while rural scenic byway research insufficiently links node selection, cultural resource organization and route planning. The deduplicated inventory contained 173 officially designated traditional villages and historic villages and towns across 11 county-level units in the southern Taihang Mountains, Henan, China. Spatial analyses assessed village clustering and road proximity. Candidate roads were evaluated across five dimensions using combined BWM–CRITIC weighting and GIS overlay. Official designations defined candidate nodes, and GIS-assisted manual planning integrated cultural resources, node coverage and road connectivity. Villages were significantly clustered (NNI = 0.546, z = −11.425, p < 0.001), mainly in Linzhou and the Hebi–Huixian mountains. We identified 6151 road segments with high or relatively high suitability, totaling 2624.405 km. Recommended routes covered 89 nodes across a physical road network of 1200.375 km; 94.69% of this length was traceable to the preceding suitability assessment. Protected-area intersections and steep-slope risks require further ecological compliance and engineering safety assessments. These findings provide a spatial basis for integrating mountainous rural cultural heritage into connected routes and coordinating traditional village conservation.