Measuring Rural Revitalization Performance Across Chinese Provinces

Promoting the steady implementation of the Rural Revitalization Strategy is not only an inevitable requirement for the development of socialism with Chi-nese characteristics but also a fundamental strategy concerning the national econo-my and people's livelihood. Rural revitalization plays a crucial role in enhancing social and economic development, improving residents' well-being, and foster-ing sustainable progress in rural areas. In this study, an indicator system based on the five-dimensional frame-work—prosperous industries, ecological livability, civilized, effective govern-ance, and affluent living—is constructed and analyzed systematically. The re-search em-ploys data from twenty secondary indicators across thirty-one prov-inces from 2014 to 2022. The entropy weight method is utilized to calculate the compre-hensive rural revitalization index. The findings reveal that the compre-hensive level of rural revitalization has been steadily improving across prov-inces; however, spatial disparities have slightly widened. A distinct "East-Middle-West" descending gradient is observed in the spatial distribution of rural revitalization. From the perspective of the five dimensions, the devel-opment of civilized remains relatively low in most provinces, necessitat-ing further efforts to enhance rural cultural and ethical standards. In contrast, the dimension of effective governance has witnessed significant reductions in re-gional disparities, with most provinces achieving relatively high levels of pro-gress.