Delineation of traditional village boundaries: The case of Haishangqiao village in the Yiluo River Basin, China.

Abstract

In the conservation and development of traditional villages, it is vital to delineate reasonable village boundaries. At present, China's traditional village boundaries are mainly defined through the boundaries of village construction land in its land policy. This approach ignores the "natural" state of traditional village boundaries and does not truly reflect villagers' use of their villages. Using the constituent line segments of traditional village boundaries as parameters, we delineate a series of traditional village boundaries and constructed an assessment system for traditional village boundaries in terms of the convenience of villagers' activities and their habitual use of village space. We used the delineation of the boundary of Haishangqiao village in the Yiluo River Basin in China as an example to test the effectiveness of the traditional village boundary delineation method and assessment system. The results show the following: (1) The virtual line segments connecting the buildings on the traditional village boundary are the main factors affecting the delineation of the traditional village boundary. (2) The amplitude of vibration and the global deviation of traditional village boundaries are the main influencing factors of complexity. (3) The complexity of traditional village boundaries is negatively correlated with the convenience of villagers' activities. (4) The complexity of traditional village boundaries is negatively correlated with the emptiness of the internal space of traditional villages. The results of this study can provide practical reference values for scholars of rural planning, rural construction, rural conservation, rural management, and rural research.