**5. Discussion**

A village is the basic unit of social and economic activities in rural China and is the basis for guaranteeing the ecological security of land and maintaining the harmonious relationship between man and land [43,44]. Owing to China's early implementation of the development strategy of "industry and city first," the relationship between urban and rural areas presents evident "dual" characteristics [45]. The development of China's rural areas has shown grea<sup>t</sup> imbalance and inadequacy [46], and the problems of rural environmental pollution, lagging public service facilities, and disorderly village construction have become more prominent. In the international arena, rural decay is also an area of research focus [47]. After experiencing urbanization and reverse urbanization, developed countries have taken a series of measures to narrow the urban-rural gap and promote rural development, such as the "New Town Construction" in the United States [48] and the suburban rural development plan in France [49]. However, rural revitalization is not a revitalization of all existing villages but rather targeted support for development. Based on the real situation of village areas, this paper establishes a scientific index system to measure their development potential in four dimensions: location advantage, resource endowment, economic vitality and development limitation, and uses them as a basis for classifying types to guide the hierarchical implementation of village planning. We can solve the problem of inadequate rural development with more pertinence only by scientifically identifying village types and using limited financial and material resources where they are really needed. Starting from the practical problems faced by rural decline, this study comprehensively considers the current situation, direction and law of rural development, and constructs a set of scientific and reasonable evaluation index systems. On the one hand, we hope that its evaluation results can be used as an important basis for judging the development potential of villages and for identifying and analyzing the problems and shortcomings of village development. On the other hand, it is applied to guide local village planning practice, improving local governmen<sup>t</sup> service management, and providing a reference for the scientific and reasonable formulation of optimal strategies for rural revitalization. This study provides a new idea and path for the revitalization of the world's villages and further enriches the research content of rural geography.

China's vast territory and the large geographical differences in the physical geography of different regions, including the spatial patterns and constraints of urban and rural development in each region, also determine the diversity and complexity of rural types [50]. This study analyzes and discusses the rural types in the southwestern hilly mountainous

areas and does not cover other areas, such as highlands and plains. In addition, considering the limitation of basic data and research scale, this study did not regard rural areas from the perspective of long-term series, and the constructed index system also has room for further improvement. Subsequent studies will further optimize the classification method of rural potential types, refine the evaluation index system, consider the stage changes of rural development from the perspective of long-term series, and further explore the rich connotation of rural development potential to optimize the zoning results.
