Sustainable Development Levels and Influence Factors in Rural China Based on Rural Revitalization Strategy

Accurate and quantitative assessments of rural development can offer important information for the formulation of rural development strategies. The purpose of this study was to provide a new perspective on the evaluation of rural sustainable development, overcoming the limitations of past studies that were based on simple analyses using a single method. In doing so, we aimed to provide a theoretical reference for formulating differentiated policies for regional rural development. In the present study, the rural development levels of 31 provincial administrative regions in China from 2000 to 2020 were analyzed based on the rural revitalization index framework, using five dimensions proposed in a previous study, i.e., industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance, and a rich life. China's rural sustainable development level was calculated using kernel density estimation and least squares estimation of temporal and spatial analyses. The results revealed that the development levels of rural areas in China are improving, but the improvement is not spatially consistent across rural areas. On the basis of the driving factors and causal mechanism, seven types of rural development levels were identified. We further analyzed the main reasons for the spatial differences in rural development levels and offer suggestions for improvement.