Cultural landscape evolution of traditional agricultural villages in North China-Case of Qianzhai Village in Shandong Province

Agricultural village is an important rural type in China. The evolution process and mechanism of its cultural landscape are different from those of the industrialized village. The paper focuses this theme by a case study of Qianzhai Village of Qufu City, Shangdong Province. In the case of Qianzhai Village, the evolution of its settlement has experienced three stages: mechanical expansion, sprawling expansion and hollowing, and recentralization. The landscape evolution of residents' houses has undergone three phases: traditional quadrangle house, one-storied house and multistoried house. The evolution of its land use has experienced three stages: circled stratification, fragment and intensive use, and concentration and extensive use. We can see that the main driving factors of cultural landscape evolution of agricultural village are the changes of rural population, society, economy and culture, which are influenced by the change of urban-rural relation, the national modernization process and economic development, the reform of family planning and land system, and the changes in governmental policies. In the future, the modernization, ecological trend, and individualization for residents' houses of agricultural villages in China will develop step by step. The recentralization of settlement and the scaled, sustainable, intensive land use are likely to be the trends of agricultural villages in China.