Evolutionary process and mechanism of population hollowing out in rural villages in the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China: A case study of Yanchi County, Ningxia

The hollowing out of the rural population is one of the main reasons for declining rural areas. Studying the hollowing out of the rural population is of great significance in promoting the integrated development of urban and rural areas in the new era. This paper presents the mechanism of the rural development process and divides it into four stages: primary equilibrium, differentiation and divestment, decline or transformation, and urban-rural integration. This paper provides the spatial and temporal evolution patterns and driving factors of rural population hollowing out by analyzing spatial changes of 87 administrative villages in Yanchi County, Ningxia Province with ArcGIS. The results show that: (1) the degree of population hollowing out is unevenly distributed spatially, with highly hollowed areas mainly concentrated in the north where transportation is convenient, and the hollowed areas develop over time from point to linear along transportation routes; (2) the degree of population hollowing out is increasing, but the rate has slowed down; (3) rural population hollowing is influenced by physical geography, basic service facilities, and socio-economic, changing over time. This paper concludes that population hollowing out in rural villages is inevitable in the process of transition from a smallholder economy to modern agriculture. Hollowing out has resulted in rural land use changes, and may bring opportunities for largescale agricultural operation and advances the development of urban-rural integration, under appropriate policy design and guidance. In the future, more attention should be paid to the new trends of return migration.