The integrated development path of urban and rural areas in counties based on the concept of "town-village" continuum: A case study of Shiping County

As the main battlefield for urban-rural integration, the county is of great significance in promoting urban-rural factor flow, industrial structure optimization, and rational allocation of resources. Taking Shiping County in Yunnan province as an example, the study constructs a research framework of "town-village" continuum, establishes a quantitative evaluation system from four aspects of population, economy, society and space, to analyze the level of town-village synergistic development. Through the coupling degree and coupling synergy degree model, the research analyzes the temporal and spatial differentiation characteristics of the town-village coupling synergy. Based on the spatial pattern and the level of town-village synergy, the county villages and towns are clustered and divided into three types: town-led village, town-village synergy, and village-promoted town, and adaptive planning and development strategies are formulated, establishing the village and town research paradigm of “evaluation-feature-strategy”. The study found that the development of towns and villages should achieve higher social and economic benefits through integrated layout, classification and optimization of structure; through the reshaping of village values and the reconstruction of town and village relations, the study explored the path of development of towns and villages to meet the needs of the times, and ultimately promoted the synergistic development of towns and villages and the integration of urban and rural areas in the county.