Traditional village clustered protection and utilization methods based on network science

China’s traditional villages face challenges in cultural preservation and economic development. To address this, the Traditional Village Clustered Protection and Utilization initiative shifts the focus from single-village conservation to regional cluster revitalization. This study analyzes 156 villages (111 Chinese traditional villages and 45 ancient villages with high conservation value) in eastern Hubei Province, applying industrial cluster theory and network science methods to construct a multilayer network model. Key findings include: (1) Eight cross-district subgroups were categorized into single-county, cross-county clustered and cross-county dispersed; (2) Thirty core nodes were identified and classified as 12 strongest power nodes, 8 strongest connectivity nodes, and 10 chain nodes, driving both intra- and inter-community development. The proposed core node-driven subgroup strategy, which is replicable and generalizable, can be applied to various regional and cultural contexts through network variable adjustments. This strategy plays a crucial role in achieving a balance between sustainable development and cultural preservation in traditional villages in the cluster approach.