| China is the country with thousands of years of farming civilization. The ancient village,which is the basic unit of society, is the epitome of the agricultural era. The development ofvillage carries the historical imprint. The legacy of ancient villages, which is the valuablematerial and cultural heritage, carries the regional traditional culture, art and architecture, folkcustoms and so on. The ancient village has great appeal to people as the excellent material andcultural heritage. With further study on the village, its significance and value are graduallyaccepted by more persons with breadth of vision. With the changes of times and rapiddevelopment of the social economy, most of ancient villages can not meet the needs of modernsociety, and face severe challenges.The object of the paper is to investigate well preserved ancient villages located in theDongxiang area of Zhenjiang city of Jiangsu province by means of surveying, mapping andconsulting related documents. These villages in Dongxiang are deeply analyzed from theperspective of natural environment, cultural history, village location, settlement spatialcharacteristics and village historic buildings. Besides, the paper shows the unique history,morphology and village culture of ancient villages in Dongxiang, and analyzes the problems inthe course of protection and development of the villages according to their present situation.Meanwhile, the paper further explores the path of sustainable development of ancient villagesin Dongxiang in order to continue their vitality.The paper is divided into six chapters. The first chapter presents the general plan,including the source, content, purpose and significance and method of research and otherrelevant concepts. The second chapter simply introduces the natural geographical environment,social background and cultural characteristics of the Dongxiang area. The third chapter deeplyanalyzes and investigates the factors of the formation and development of ancient villages inDongxiang. The fourth chapter studies the settlement spatial characteristics, layoutcharacteristics and residence morphology of ancient villages. The fifth chapter describes andsummarizes the typical ancient villages in Dongxiang. The sixth chapter studies thecountermeasure of the protection and development of ancient villages in Dongxiang. |
