Rural communities Rural communities are relative to traditional administrative villages and modern urban communities. They refer to a social life entity composed of rural residents living together within a certain geographical range based on agricultural production methods.

Rural communities are a more flexible institutional platform than natural villages and commune, team, and village organization systems.

It is built around how to form a new social life community, focusing on improving people's quality of life, cohesion and identity by integrating resources and improving services.

Rural sociologists have different understandings of what rural communities mean.

Some emphasize that rural communities have a unique central point; some emphasize that its residents have a strong sense of identity; some emphasize that they have specific social organizations and social systems; some emphasize that they have special lifestyles, etc.

Summarizing everyone’s views, the basic elements that constitute a rural community are: ① having a vast area, low residents’ concentration, and mainly engaged in agriculture; ② forming social groups and social organizations with certain characteristics; ③ taking villages or towns as the basis

The center of residents’ activities; ④ Residents in the same rural community have generally the same lifestyle, values ??and behavioral norms, and have a certain sense of identity.

According to the chronological order of development and the distribution of residential areas, rural communities can be divided into scattered villages, market villages, market towns and other types.

1. Scattered village communities are scattered small villages that were originally formed or formed due to special geographical environment.

The characteristics of this type of community are: generally low development level, low concentration level, three to five families, seven or eight families living together, who are not relatives or friends.

Most residents are engaged in planting and breeding, and the economy is simple. Residents have frequent exchanges, know each other deeply, help each other, and have close relationships.

However, this type of community is generally isolated from the outside world, with poor information and inconvenient transportation. Residents have strong traditional concepts and are relatively conservative. Community changes are slow and social mobility is low.

With the development of social economy, scattered village communities generally gradually transition to concentrated village communities.

2. Village community is a village with a large number of people, a large scale, and concentrated residences. Generally, dozens or even hundreds of households live together. Plains, coastal areas, transportation lines, deltas and other places are mostly used as settlement points.

The interpersonal relationship in the community of the village is not as close as that of the scattered village. The blood and clan relations have begun to fade, and one or several clans with big surnames often live together with residents from outside.

There are more social organizations and social systems than scattered villages.

Many market villages have service centers, and some villages already have "period markets" or markets.

3. Market town communities developed from market villages and have become small political, economic and cultural centers in rural areas.

In modern market towns, there are processing industries, commerce, service industries, etc., and these communities have become rural small commodity distribution centers and rural industrial bases.

In market town communities, the economic structure and resident composition are more complex than in market villages, and interpersonal relationships are more distant than in market towns. The kinship and geographical relationships among residents gradually transition to business relationships, and the traditional concepts of residents also gradually change to modern concepts.

, social organizations and social systems are more complete.

With the development of rural commercialization, socialization and modernization, the social functions of market towns have become increasingly diverse.

In addition to the above divisions, rural communities can also be divided according to location into plain villages, lakeside villages, coastal villages, mountain villages, and suburban rural areas; according to the industries they are engaged in, they can be divided into agricultural villages, fishing villages, pastoral villages, mining villages, comprehensive villages, etc.

Village etc.

Compared with urban communities, rural communities have the following characteristics: 1. They occupy a wider area and are more dependent on the natural ecological environment. Agriculture in the broad sense (planting, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, etc. that use living animals and plants as labor objects)

, insects, microorganisms, etc.) are land and its appendages. Plants growing on the land and animals using the land as carriers occupy a large amount of regional space; there are a large number of mountainous areas in the country that are not suitable for human habitation.

Water areas are also mainly distributed in rural areas, allowing rural communities to occupy a wider area and have a more superior ecological environment than cities.

The ecological environment has a direct impact on rural production and life, and agricultural production is highly dependent on the ecological environment.

If vegetation and forests are destroyed, it will cause soil erosion, affect the climate, lead to natural disasters, and reduce crop yields.

2. Small population density and low education level. Rural areas cover a wider area, and the population density is much sparser than that in cities.

In general, developing countries have a single rural economic structure, low levels of education, culture, and science and technology development, underdeveloped health services, limited transportation and information, and deep accumulation of traditional culture.

The occupational structure of the population is relatively simple and highly homogeneous.

3. Social problems are not as complex, concentrated, and prominent as in cities, and the crime rate is lower (see rural social problems). 4. The occupations engaged by residents are mainly agriculture in the broad sense. Rural communities emerged with the emergence and development of primitive agriculture.

With the development of rural communities, the industrial structure is undergoing major changes. The proportion of non-agricultural industries will gradually increase, agricultural labor will gradually transfer to non-agricultural industries, the secondary and tertiary industries will develop, and small towns will increase accordingly.

5. Rural social organizations are simpler than those in cities. In general traditional rural communities, there are more customary organizations (such as clan, religious, and gang organizations) and fewer statutory organizations. The hierarchical organization with divided departments and hierarchical responsibilities is not yet developed.