ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security

Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1616867

This article is part of the Research TopicData-Driven Urban Dynamics: Sustainable Urbanization and Mobility in Peripheral AreasView all 5 articles

Village-level spatial differentiation and influencing factors of rural population hollowing in the agricultural areas of Central China: A case study of Lankao County, Henan

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Henan University, Zhengzhou, China
  • 2Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, Henan, China
  • 3Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Rural hollowing is a manifestation of rural decline under rapid urbanization and industrialization, with population hollowing at its core. While most existing studies have been conducted at the county level, the relatively few village-level studies have mainly focused on Western and Northeastern China. In contrast, the densely populated villages of Central China, which are characterized by limited per capita cultivated land, have received comparatively less scholarly attention. Focusing on Lankao County-a representative agricultural region in Central China-this study integrates villagelevel geospatial and socio-economic data to investigate the spatial differentiation and influencing factors of rural population hollowing, employing spatial analysis and geodetectors. The findings show that: (1) Villages in Lankao County had a generally high population hollowing index (PHI), with a spatial distribution pattern characterized by higher values in the southwest and lower ones in the northeast. (2) The population hollowing levels of villages in Lankao County showed a significant positive spatial autocorrelation at the global level. The local spatial autocorrelation analysis revealed that significant villages predominantly exhibited LL and HH clusters. (3) Some factors have a certain explanatory power for the formation of the spatial distribution pattern of population hollowing in Lankao County in each of the following four dimensions: resource endowment, economic base, social welfare, and geographic location. Moreover, when any two factors interact, their explanatory power for the spatial distribution of population hollowing is enhanced. (4) Resource endowment, economic base, and social welfare determine the complementarity between villages and the outside world, while geographic location affects the accessibility between them. This study not only addresses the limitations of existing village-level research on rural population hollowing but also enriches the diversity of study areas, offering valuable insights for mitigating rural population outflow and promoting sustainable development in similar agricultural regions.

Keywords: rural population hollowing, Spatial differentiation, Resource endowment, Economic base, Social Welfare, Geographic location, Village-level, Lankao county

Received: 25 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Cheng, Li, Ma and Qiao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Jiajun Qiao, Henan University, Zhengzhou, China

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