Rural areas, sometimes called villages, are a kind of settlements whose basic economic activities are agriculture. Also known as the countryside. Primitive tribes originated in the middle paleolithic period. In the Neolithic age, agriculture and animal husbandry began to separate, and clans whose main livelihood was agriculture settled down, and real villages appeared. The earliest excavated village sites in China belong to the early Neolithic period, such as Hemudu in Zhejiang and Banpo in Shaanxi. According to the content of rural economic activities, it can be divided into agricultural villages (planting), forestry villages, animal husbandry villages and fishery villages, as well as agriculture, forestry, agriculture and animal husbandry, agriculture and fishery villages. According to whether villages have administrative meaning, they can be divided into natural villages and administrative villages. A natural village is a village entity and an administrative village is an administrative entity. A natural village can have several administrative villages, and an administrative village can also include several small natural villages.

Rural areas are also called non-urbanized areas. Generally speaking, social productive forces have developed to a certain stage, which is relatively independent and has specific economic, social and natural landscape characteristics.

The understanding and classification standards of rural concepts at home and abroad are different. It is generally believed that the rural population density is low, the scale of settlement is small, agricultural production is the main economic base, the social structure is relatively simple and similar, and the lifestyle and landscape of residents are obviously different from those of cities.

In China, rural areas refer to the vast areas below the county level. For a long time, the level of rural productivity is very low, the floating population is small and the economy is underdeveloped. But it has also gained some benefits, such as: the environmental damage in rural areas is far lower than that in cities. Its industrial structure is centered on agriculture, and other industries or departments directly or indirectly serve agriculture or are related to agricultural production. Therefore, it is considered that rural areas are places where agricultural production and farmers live together, and rural economy and agriculture are equal.

Since 1980s, the rural industrial structure has undergone profound changes, and the rural division of labor has also made great progress, and there has been a new breakthrough in the understanding of the countryside, which is shown as follows: ① The countryside is not only a place where agricultural production and farmers live in compact communities, but also a complete economic life, with independent activities in many aspects. In addition to agriculture, rural areas also include economic activities of material production and non-material production departments such as industry, transportation, construction, commerce and service industry; (2) the countryside is not only a comprehensive economic entity, but also a society, that is, it includes not only the economy, but also all activities such as politics, culture, education and customs outside the economy; (3) Villages include not only economic and social activities, but also spatial factors, that is, three-dimensional factors of natural environment. It is a regional complex with certain natural, socio-economic characteristics and functions.

Village is a historical and dynamic concept. From a global perspective, the specific economic region of villages can be divided into five historical development stages: primitive villages, ancient villages, modern villages, modern villages and future villages. At present, the rural areas of China are in the transition stage from modern to modern.

The countryside is also a place for leisure, where you are carefree.

Nowadays, due to the deterioration of the urban environment and the increasing congestion in the urban center, more and more city people begin to choose to spend their holidays or settle in the countryside.