Introduction. Achieving stable economic growth was one of the main goals of any state in the 20th century. The mindless desire at any cost to demonstrate to the world the growth of the gross domestic product, it is not supported by the introduction of new technologies and care for the environment, almost led to a global collapse. Suddenly it turned out that nature is not able to satisfy the growing needs of humanity. Methods. The theoretical basis of the study is the dialectical method of scientific knowledge, the fundamental provisions of economic theory, scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists on theoretical and methodological issues of regulating the social and economic development of rural areas, as well as the achievements of world science in solving the problems of their balanced development. The author used general scientific and special research methods to solve the tasks: historical and economic – to analyse the genesis of theories and practice of regulation, study of the processes of economic and social transformation of rural areas during integration transformations, assessment of risks and positive consequences of agro-European integration; abstract and logical method – for substantiating and concretizing the main provisions of the concept of social and economic development of rural areas; when clarifying and comparing the economic essence of the “sustainable development” category; comparative analysis – to determine trends and regularities of foreign and domestic experience of rural development. The results. The theoretical approach and interpretation of the concept of “rural territory” from the standpoint of sustainable development, as a formalized structure of society – a local community engaged in economic development to improve the quality of life of its residents, has been clarified. The quality of life of the population of rural areas can be characterized by the degree of satisfaction of material and spiritual needs of citizens. From these positions, the sustainable development of rural areas is more a means of achieving a decent quality of life than a goal of the local community. At the same time, the quality of life is a criterion for the sustainability of the social development of rural areas. Actually, the goal of economic development is to ensure the well-being of the local community. Discussion. The post-war period of revitalization of rural areas of Ukraine will make adjustments to the theoretical foundations of their sustainable development. First of all, the task of European reference points for the development of rural areas with highly developed social infrastructure, innovative agricultural production will arise. Keywords: rural territories, sustainable development, rural area, population, environment.