Based on the diverse nexus between humans and nature, exploring innovative pathways and regional models for rural revitalization stands as a strategic cornerstone and a cutting-edge focus within rural studies. Following a systematical review on the shift of rural development paradigms, we in this paper propose an innovative pathway of rural neo-endogenous development driven by knowledge through the integration of concepts such as social innovation and rural transformation. Essentially, "knowledge-driven" can be understood as a process-based innovation, wherein various stakeholders participate in the generation, dissemination, feedback, and regeneration of scientific knowledge and local wisdom. This process ultimately precipitates shifts in behaviors and attitudes of both local and extra-local actors, thereby giving rise to collective insights and solutions for rural development. Regarding the functioning mechanisms, "knowledge-driven" typically facilitates the iteration of technological paths for rural development via four interconnected means: constructing novel discourses for rural transformation, empowering local communities, forging connections between local and extra-localities, and innovating rural governance. In practice implementation, "knowledge-driven" engages multiple stakeholders and unfolds across three sequential stages, they are, knowledge/experimentation searching, diffusion and expression of interest, collective learning and co-ordination. In conclusion, we contend that transcending the urban-centric "core-periphery" mindset, broadening the initial impetus and the cohort of pioneer actors, and streamlining the channel from "niche innovation" to "collective learning" hold significant promise for expediting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.

"Form-flow integration" is an important theoretical concept proposed for understanding the complex human-land relationships in metropolitan regions with highly concentrated human activities. Existing research on regional spatial patterns has gradually shifted from a single perspective based either on physical spatial forms or on elemental flows to a comprehensive analysis. The new paradigm of region spatial analysis has focused on the balance between physical spatial forms and elemental flows. However, an in-depth analysis of the interaction mechanism between physical spatial forms and elemental flows is still needed. Especially, it is crucial to explore the territorial spatial optimization of a metropolitan region based on the perspective of "form-flow integration". Drawing on the theoretical joint of "central flow" and "central place", and the theory of human-land interaction, this paper aims to figure out the theoretical foundation for the concept of "form-flow integration". Combining the dynamic changes of human activities and the system of geographical environment against the background of globalization, industrialization, and urbanization, this paper analyzes the connotation and mechanism of the interaction between physical spatial forms and elemental flows. Furthermore, it explores the theoretical framework and specific path of metropolitan spatial optimization from the perspective of "form-flow integration". This paper concludes that while the human-land relationship is an important theoretical basis for "form-flow integration", the "form-flow integration" is a prominent manifestation of human-land relationships, which provides an important perspective for understanding the complex human-land relationships in regions with highly concentrated human activities. Addressing the practical needs of ecological civilization construction and territorial spatial planning, this paper explores the establishment of comprehensive metropolitan evaluation, spatial layout guidance, simulation, and optimization control system for the integration analysis of physical spaces and flow elements. Besides, through optimizing the territorial space of metropolitan regions from the perspective of "form-flow integration", it helps to form a metropolitan region coordinated development path integrating elemental flows and local resources.

The integration of digital technology into rural development is opening up new opportunities and pathways for the modernization of China's rural areas. Innovative spatial governance models tailored to the digital era are establishing essential pathways to support rural modernization. In this new period, the digital transformation of rural spaces is characterized by the convergence of virtual and physical spaces and multi-scale fluidity. Despite this progress, significant challenges persist in advancing the "three rural issues" (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers) toward modernization. Constructing digital rural spatial governance framework and implementation pathways for rural modernization is of great practical significance. The paper, based on a technical approach of "theoretical construction → underlying mechanisms → pathway breakthroughs," explores a digital rural spatial governance system aimed at advancing rural modernization in China. The study reveals several key findings: (1) Digital rural spatial governance is an innovative approach to spatial development and usage control, driven by emerging new technologies and evolving needs. This governance model enhances the value of rural spaces, ensures rational spatial flows, fosters diverse participation, and introduces new models for managing and utilizing rural space. (2) The core components of modern digital rural spatial governance include three main aspects: the governance of material spaces to optimize the human-land relationship, the governance of spatial value to harmonize urban-rural relationships, and the governance of spatial flows to merge virtual and physical spaces seamlessly. These approaches work together to build a stronger foundation for digital governance in rural areas, expand new multi-stakeholder models for spatial management, and create innovative pathways for realizing spatial value. Through these efforts they contribute new momentum to China's rural modernization. (3) Rural modernization in China encompasses advancements in rural production systems, urban-rural integration, and organizational structures. (4) By refining human-land dynamics, value frameworks, and spatial flow mechanisms, digital rural spatial governance creates opportunities for diversification in rural spatial development, broadening channels for spatial value transformation, and enhancing the effectiveness of rural organizational structures. This, in turn, provides vital support for achieving a modernized rural landscape. (5) Digital rural spatial governance establishes a cohesive framework for rural modernization by supporting coordinated development across agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. It promotes urban-rural integration and comprehensive rural governance, advancing the broader objective of rural modernization. This study helps clarify the intrinsic relationship between digital rural spatial governance and rural modernization, offering valuable references for innovative rural development in the digital age.

This study investigates the multi-scale differentiation of terrain from an urban-rural perspective and proposes a path for the multi-scale integration of terrain. Such insights are of highly significant value for the understanding, utilization and protection of terrain, and also contribute to regional development. This study introduces the theory of urban-rural terrain integration based on the understanding and expansion on concepts such as scale, materiality-immateriality and integration. Its connotation, pathway, concept, and step for realizing this theory are elaborated in this study. Finally, this study illustrates the specific realization process using Jurong as a case. From the study, two conclusions emerged: (1) The essence of urban-rural terrain integration is a development concept that includes two specific connotations: materiality integration - linking urban-rural terrain landscapes, and immateriality integration - facilitating ecological sharing between urban and rural terrains. Materiality integration can be regarded as the foundation of immateriality integration. The realization of urban-rural terrain integration is required by two dimensions as support, which are institutional design and corridor design. The concept of its realization spans through a nested process from large to micro scales, with realization steps categorized into the evaluation of integration condition and the construction of integration corridor. (2) Based on the results of the evaluation of integration condition and the feasibility of the construction of integration corridor, this study preliminarily provides a brief institutional framework for urban-rural terrain integration in Jurong, and designs a brief integration corridor with the concept of ecological leisure. The urban-rural terrain integration in Jurong has successfully achieved the objectives such as linking urban-rural terrain landscapes, facilitating ecological sharing between urban and rural terrains, and optimizing the utilization and protection of terrain, resulting in favorable socio-economic and ecological benefits. The results of this study can provide new concepts for terrain development, utilization and protection, new insights for urban-rural integration development, and new directions and theoretical basis for related studies.

With the rapid advancement of science and technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a significant force driving scientific development and social progress. In the field of geographical sciences, the application of AI technology is deepening, bringing revolutionary changes to the collection, analysis, and application of big data and spatio-temporal information, and demonstrating innovative and application potential in multiple aspects. This paper systematically reviews the development and application of AI in geographical sciences, providing a detailed introduction to the development trajectories of various AI fields such as machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, planning systems, and large AI models, as well as their applications in geography. It discusses the problems and challenges of AI applications in geography and provides an outlook on the future development of interdisciplinary research between AI and geographical sciences.

The new wave of technological revolution driven by artificial intelligence (AI) has become a competitive advantage pursued by countries worldwide, and it is also expected to bring about significant innovations in urban geography. This paper reviews the development trajectory of AI and proposes a conceptual model of the urban human-environment system oriented towards AI. It systematically outlines and summarizes the involvement of AI in urban geography research from four perspectives: data representation, scenario applications, spatial transformations, and urban development. Additionally, it identifies the challenges, contexts, exploration paths, and future prospects faced in the intelligent transformation of academic disciplines. The study finds that: (1) The interactions between elements within the urban human-environment system oriented towards AI are becoming increasingly complex. (2) The trend of AI becoming a primary tool in urban geography research is increasingly evident, offering high efficiency, low cost, and strong learning capabilities in data processing. This has significant implications for spatial perception and intelligent decision-making. AI has sparked spatial transformations, not only creating complex virtual spaces but also reconstructing social spaces. Additionally, AI supports the development of smart cities and the establishment of cutting-edge urban application platforms. (3) Urban geography research in the context of intelligent transformation faces challenges related to data and technology, as well as the broader contexts of global and local changes, technological ethics, and the development of humanistic values. Future development paths could explore overcoming technical barriers, focusing on urban spatial construction and governance, and emphasizing the research on the effects of multiple intelligence shifts. The discipline urgently needs comprehensive transformation and upgrading.

With the transformation of the economy from material product reproduction to data, information, knowledge, and intelligent reproduction, the Krugman Core-Periphery Model, which focuses on traditional tangible material product factors, is no longer able to systematically explain the phenomenon of spatial agglomeration of economic activities and the mechanism of talent regional migration in China. This article constructs a new core-periphery model based on the theory of new spatial economics, which includes qualities of space and its premium effect. The study finds that: Firstly, the new model has new characteristics such as quasi-burst aggregation, asymmetric maintenance points, and spatial differences in completely free trade; Secondly, non-agricultural labor tends to be in areas with higher qualities of space, and the larger the gap in qualities of space, the more obvious the trend of mobility; Thirdly, narrowing the gap in qualities of space requires comprehensive consideration of various factors such as the level of convenience facilities in each region and the cost of intra-regional and inter-regional travel. The research results indicate that promoting high-quality and coordinated regional development in the future requires a scientific understanding of the impact of qualities of space on the spatial location of economic activities. It is necessary to grasp the theoretical logic of narrowing the gap in qualities of space and attach importance to regional integration construction of qualities of space.

Rural attraction is an important indicator of the functions of the rural regional system during flow situations. This theoretical topic in rural development has been discussed within multiple disciplines, but lacks systematic research. Nevertheless, it has become a cutting-edge theoretical research topic in the field of rural geography. Following the research progress and theoretical foundations of rural attraction, this paper constructs a theoretical framework for rural attraction from a geographical perspective, and explains five of its most important issues. (1) The research literature on rural attraction has shifted from fragmented elaborations on the qualities of attractive villages and the unidimensional analysis of rural attraction to the exploration of its concept, mechanism, and evaluation system in terms of urban-rural interactions. The theories underlying the rural regional system of human-environment interactions, gravity, population migration, and attraction property rights, can provide a theoretical foundation and inspiration for the research on rural attraction. (2) Focusing on scientific issues in rural attraction, such as "what is-how-why-how to", and moving toward the framework goal of "theoretical innovation, serving practice, and methodological guidance," a theoretical framework for rural attraction is constructed with the support of spatiotemporal considerations, a comprehensive theoretical paradigm, and the methods used in the field of rural geography. (3) Five important issues experienced during efforts to improve rural attraction were analyzed. First, we analyzed the conceptual connotations of rural attraction based on the background of rural regional systems and spatial interactions from the perspective of spatiotemporal processes. Second, we constructed a measurement framework for rural attraction based on these conceptual connotations and evaluation principles. Third, we identified the regional types and spatial structures of rural attraction from the perspectives of spatial correlations and scale transformation. Fourth, following the theories of human-regional system of human-environment relationship and scale transformation, we explored the mechanisms of rural attraction's endogenous development and exogenous embedding processes. Fifth, considering historical processes and spatial heterogeneity, we explored the pathways and policy insights for enhancing rural attraction. Overall, this research attempts to construct a "what is-how-why-how to" research framework for rural attraction based on a comprehensive "spatiotemporal human-environment" perspective. This study aims to deepen and expand the theoretical research on rural attraction, in addition to providing theoretical references and policy insights for the implementation of rural revitalization strategies in the construction of harmonious and beautiful rural areas.

Since the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, rural areas in China have been undergoing a rapid structural socio-economic transformation. In this context, increasing rural social value becomes a pressing issue in the next step, and determining how diverse participants contribute to value growth is the prerequisite. Based on a deep understanding of the concept of rural social value, this study takes Baqiao town, one of the developed rural regions in China, as a case example, using SolVES model to evaluate the rural social value and to analyse the value provision pattern it formed. In addition, based on interview data, this study built an actor-network that drives the provision pattern of rural social value, then comprehensively analyzed the formation mechanism of the pattern, and proposed optimization strategies at the end. The main conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) The distribution of rural social value is spatially imbalanced, with a spatial mismatch between the core area of providing value and the area gathered high value. (2) Through increasing and improving the value providers, human participants actively take two committees of the rural area as the center to drive the formation of the value provision pattern. (3) On one hand, non-human participants shape the spatial form of value by their intrinsic functional attributes; on the other hand, non-human participants are able to be transformed into a new value provider under the guidance of human participants. (4) The formation process of the provision pattern of rural social value is the process in which diverse participants guide relative stakeholders to perceive existing value in a certain space-time context. To sum up, this study aims to build and optimize a rural social value provision pattern, namely, 'setting goals-designing and distributing value providers-reinforcing the perceptions of stakeholders'. The findings of this study are significant for enriching the rural value theory, promoting the efficient provision of social value and optimizing the rural multi-governance system.

The introduction of complexity science in urban geography has provided a new perspective to understand cities. Urban scaling law is one of the simple rules behind complex urban systems, which describes how urban indicators scale with urban population size within the system of cities. Social interaction-related urban indicators, such as GDP and innovation, super-linearly scale with urban population in a power law form, while infrastructure-related urban indicators, such as roads and gas stations, sub-linearly scale with population. Other urban indicators linearly scale with population, which are related to human individual needs, such as jobs and household electricity consumption. In this study, we first summarize the content and progress of urban scaling law during the past decade (2007-2020) from the following four aspects: the validation of urban scaling law, the explanation on the mechanism of urban scaling law, the application of urban scaling law, and the criticism of urban scaling law. We further compare the fundamental differences between the urban scaling law and urban allometric growth. Urban scaling law describes quantitative relationships between urban indicators and population size across cities, while urban allometric growth emphasizes the temporal growth of individual cities. Our analysis indicates that the cross-sectional urban scaling law cannot be applied to predict temporal trajectories of individual cities. Finally, we introduce the scale-adjusted metropolitan indicator (SAMI) for the evaluation of economic performance and urban land use efficiency in 291 Chinese cities, which is based on the theory of urban scaling law. The conventional evaluation of cities based on per capita indicators ignores the non-linear scaling relationship between urban indicators and population size. For example, the GDP per capita of large cities ranks high thanks to their advantages of population size. SAMI eliminates the influence of city size and can compare urban performance more objectively. Cities with higher SAMIs of GDP experience a higher efficiency in economic output (GDP) and they are concentrated in southeast coastal regions, middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and Xinjiang. On the contrary, cities in the northeastern China and Central China Plains experience a relatively low efficiency in economic output. Future studies are encouraged to focus on the mechanism of urban scaling law, the unified model for the evolving urban system across cities and over time, and the scaling law within cities.

High-quality development is the key measure to overcome the middle-income trap and join the advanced economy. With the deepening of reform and opening up, coastal areas have increasingly become the ballast of the economic growth, the center of national manufacturing, the frontier zone for building an innovative country, the pacesetter for constructing an open economy, and the demonstration window for green development. With typical characteristics of high-quality development, coastal areas will effectively drive the hinterland areas to the right track of high-quality development in order to form a strong support for the country's high-quality development, shaping a new pattern of coordinated regional development. According to the status quo and characteristics of high-quality development in coastal areas, this paper focuses on exploring outstanding problems of coastal areas as a whole and the northern, central and southern coastal areas in the process of high-quality development from five aspects of economic growth, industrial strength, innovation ability, opening up and green development. By analyzing realistic reasons for these problems, valuable references for the design of targeted high-quality development paths are designed. In the new era, coastal areas should grasp the historical opportunity of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development, Yangtze river delta integration, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area construction, follow to improve industry core competitiveness, mobilize the vitality of innovation, build high-standard open economy, deepen ecological conservation by combining strategies of industrial upgrading, independent innovation, opening up and ecological civilization. By the method of working in concert to promote high-quality development in the northern, central and southern coastal areas, the leading role of coastal areas can be consolidated.

The research perspective of land system science can provide a reference for the study of urban-rural integrated development promoted by land use transitions. Based on the review of the development of land system science, this paper discusses the theoretical framework concerning land use transitions affecting urban-rural integrated development guided by land system science, the influential ways and paths of land use transitions on urban-rural integrated development, and the measures of promoting urban-rural integrated development via adjusting and controlling land use transitions. Land system science is committed to monitoring land use change, explaining the driving forces and feedback mechanism, understanding the human-environment interactions occurring on land, and translating scientific findings on land system into solutions for sustainable land use. The operating of land system takes sustainable land use and human well-being as the criterions, and manifests as multi-dimensional effects of land use. Operating well the land system via scientifically adjusting and controlling land use transitions can affect the process of urban-rural integrated development. Land use transitions promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas under the effects of strengthening the whole and reinforcing weak links through four channels, i.e., efficiency improvement, value embodiment, development elements circulation and structure optimization. In order to promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas from the perspective of land system science, the adjustment and control of land use transitions need to reshape the land use rights system, to promote the integrated consolidation of territorial space, and to improve the management and control system of land use transitions.

The trajectory, pattern, and mechanism of the human-land co-evolution process is a critical issue in the field of human geography. The pattern of human-environment interaction has varied significantly during different phases of human evolution, suggesting a series of changes in the driving force of human-land co-evolution. Although a variety of underlying mechanisms specific to the key periods of human history (e.g., Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and historical ages) have been intensively investigated, there are still significant gaps in the widely accepted model of the fundamental law that governs human-land co-evolution across human history. In this paper we propose the Fulcrum Cognitive Model (FCM), with the objective of disentangling the mechanism of human-land co-evolution. The FCM focuses on the equilibrium between the natural ecosystem and human social system, which can be disturbed by both climatic/environmental change and human activities, and restored by an adjustment of the human social system. Moreover, we propose a "quantitative-change equilibrium pattern" and "qualitative-change equilibrium pattern" on the basis of FCM, to further describe the mechanism of past human-land co-evolution in different contexts. In the former pattern, a new equilibrium between the natural ecosystem and human social system is rebuilt by the corresponding changes in population size, without a shift in the fulcrum position. In contrast, in the latter pattern, societies improve their social resilience to the deterioration of the living environment through social and/or technological changes. In this case, the fulcrum position of the original equilibrium shifts and the pattern of human-environment interaction is transformed. Social resilience is gradually strengthened during the evolutionary process and the dominant influencing factor moves from natural causes towards anthropogenic factors. To test its feasibility, we applied the model to the changing patterns of the human-land relationship in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan provinces in central north China between the Yangshao period (~5000-3000 BCE) and Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE), based on a comprehensive analysis of updated archaeological and paleoclimatic data. The results suggested that the mechanism controlling the human-land relationship during ~4000-2600 BCE and 2600-256 BCE could be explained by the "quantitative-change equilibrium pattern" and "qualitative-change equilibrium pattern", respectively. The mechanism of human-land co-evolution in the past is very complicated and the interaction of these two patterns may vary in terms of its spatiotemporal scale, which will require further study in the future.

Understanding the changes of physical and human geographical environment during the past 2000 years in China is beneficial to establish the position, direction, focus areas, and initiatives of "Beautiful China" construction. In this paper, we integrated the results published in research papers, summarized the general characteristics of geographical environment changes in the history, and explored the implications of these changes on the construction of ecological civilization. The results implied that historical changes in China's land surface had been mainly manifested by the multi-scale quasi-periodic fluctuations and regional differentiation of climate, the fragmentation of the Loess Plateau, the expansion of desertified land in the northern regions, the gradual migration of delta coasts, the large scale shrinkage of lake systems especially in the Yellow River and the Yangtze River basins, and the decline in area of forests and the grasslands of northern China. Meanwhile, the economic and social changes were prominently reflected in the population growth and pattern changes, the migration of economic center to the southeast, the expansion of cultivated land to the periphery, and the transportation network evolution. From the above results, we could achieve the following enlightenments: in the future, the deserts in the northern region would still exist, and the lake systems in the middle and lower reaches of both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River were difficult to restore. The grain transportation from the south to the north disappeared in the history. But there was still much room for improvement in the coverage rate of forests, the transportation network could still achieve a higher level, and at the same time, we must mitigate the risk from climate change in the coastal cities.

Beautiful China Initiative (BCI) aims at sustainable development with blue sky and green land, lucid waters and lush mountains, prosperous society and rich people, and harmony between humans and nature. The BCI is a Chinese practice to implement the SDGs 2030 of the United Nations, and an important method to promote the harmonious development between humans and nature and to win the gold and silver mountains by maintaining clear waters and green mountains. Geography, an applied cross-discipline serving the country's socio-economic development, has comprehensive and regional characteristics. Geographers shoulder the historical mission of building a beautiful China, and are duty-bound to take the lead in becoming pioneers and practitioners of the BCI. The theory of pericoupling and telecoupling between humans and nature is the theoretical foundation of the BCI. The interdisciplinary and comprehensive integration of geography is the practical means for the BCI. The complex system simulation and optimization of geography provide a scientific tool for coupling ways between humans and nature of the BCI. The main coupling ways for geography to promote the BCI include: carry out major scientific and technological projects and coupling demonstrations; perform dynamic assessment and monitoring of the coupled human and natural systems for the BCI; draw up the strategic coupling roadmap and the action plan of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for the BCI; build a concept of beautiful land to comply with the objectives of the National Territorial Space Plan of China; develop a comprehensive regionalization of coupled human and natural systems in accordance with local conditions, and build a group of beautiful urban agglomerations and national parks; undertake pilot projects for the construction of Beautiful China and summarize the regional coupling models for the BCI. These coupling paths will ensure that the whole country and each of its provincial-level region are getting closer to the target according to the schedule and roadmap for building a beautiful China, and diverse regions will achieve the overall goals in the competition.

Agricultural and rural modernization is the general goal of the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. The scientific formulation of the rural revitalization planning is related to the implementation effect of the national rural revitalization strategy. How to establish the basic theory of rural revitalization and develop the methods of rural revitalization planning have become important tasks of academic research and government decision-making. This paper constructed the theoretical model and method system of rural revitalization planning, tried to carry out the main function-oriented zoning, dominant type classification and principal purpose classification of rural regional system, and established the spatial system of rural revitalization planning and its optimal adjustment scheme. This system was applied to the overall rural revitalization planning in Yanchi County of Ningxia. By establishing the principle of rural revitalization planning that sticks to ecological priority, adaptation to local condition, industrial support and urban-rural integration, it put forward that the priority should be given to the development of rural professional cooperation organizations and the mixed economy of villages and towns, and the acceleration of the construction of advantageous industrial system characterized by the industrialization of tan-sheep, day lily, and minor cereals, and highlighted by the wisdom of eco-cultural tourism. Moreover, it was encouraged to give prominence to the position of the central town in space, and form the village organism and housing industry coordination body with the county seat and three key towns as the center of integrated industry development. The typical case study of Yanchi County has shown that the main contents and technical points of rural revitalization planning were embodied in the following four aspects: (1) determining the overall orientation of rural revitalization planning, and clarifying the phased development mode, key areas; (2) developing the county area based on the main function-oriented zoning, leading type classification and main purpose classification system, and exploring the territorial pattern and differentiation rules; (3) establishing the county development mode and industrial system, formulating coordination schemes of different main function-oriented zones, and revealing the spatial configuration and structural relationship of different dominant types; (4) exploring the local association and hierarchical system of each dominant type in its scale and level. The main task of implementing the rural revitalization planning is to promote the formation of a new pattern of urban-rural development with factors gathering, reasonable structure and orderly space in accordance with the objective requirements of "industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance and prosperous life". China is facing great differences in rural development and many problems in transformation. Regional disparities and urban-rural differences determine the complexity, diversity and differences of rural governance and rural revitalization planning. China's rural transformation-urban and rural integration-rural revitalization-high quality development will become the major development logic and new normal in the future. The research on rural revitalization planning in the new era should focus on the overall situation of regional coordination and urban-rural integration, and solve the practical problems of "rural disease", so as to serve the national rural revitalization planning and scientific decision-making.