Spatio-temporal pattern of China's rural development: A rurality index perspective

China's rural areas are undergoing considerable spatio-temporal change. To some extent, this change increases the difficulty in our understanding the regional rural development and thus brings about challenges for the making of feasible regional rural development policies and strategic planning. This study establishes an index system to evaluate the degree of rurality in China at county level using national census data of 2000 and 2010, and examines the correlationship between rurality index and major socio-economic and geographical indicators. The results of evaluation and spatial analysis show that the rurality index can largely reflect the spatio-temporal patterns of China's rural development, and the Pearson correlation analysis confirmed that counties with high rurality have been marginalized in the aspects of both geographical location and economic development. As such, the patterns of rural development identified by rurality index analysis significantly improve our knowledge on the recent development of rural China. However, this index is less successful in revealing the agricultural production status quo alone. The authors argue that rurality index is an important tool for measuring rural development, and could provide us with valuable information for local planning and the innovation of rural development policies. Furthermore, integrating rurality studies and rural socio-economic analysis can contribute greatly to the making of integrated and regionalized rural development policies. •Using rurality index to capture China’s rural change based on national census data.•High-rurality counties are marginalized in location and economic development.•Rurality index analysis improves our knowledge on the development of rural China.•Integrated rurality studies contribute to the making of rural development policies.