A discussion of the population size, population composition and function of the village in rural areas between those in China and those in MEDCs.

Rural settlements usually includes 4 main parts: isolated areas, hamlets, villages, and small market towns. However, countries define minimum size of population required to enable a settlement to be termed a town differently. In USA, it is 2,500, Denmark is 250. However, in China, there is not a clear definition of how big a town or village should be. One defintion of China's is an area with less than 100,000 of foreign population can be defined as a town …

…vector which has both space and time. Although the functions are diversed in different places such as China and Britain, overtime, China might also have multi-function towns as counter-urbanization is also undergoing with small amount of the rich. Trickle down theory does happen in some villages where the original residents come back to contruct the village. Some suggests that re-urbanization is also happening in many MEDCs which might slow down the counter-urbanization rate in MEDCs.