Small Settlements in China

China’s contradictory attitude toward its past oscillates between cultural indifference—and even iconoclasm—with a great sense of continuity and, more recently, a real heritage fever. Twenty years ago, the first two Chinese villages were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Today, World Heritage properties in China include thirty villages, with more than seventy-five other potential nominations on the national Tentative List, while the number of villages recognized by national institutions is even larger. However, rural heritage recognition is just the tip of the iceberg of a more extensive planning process that aims to solve a dramatic development imbalance between rural and urban conditions. To that end, Small Settlements in China: Heritage, Forms, and Counterstories showcases a comprehensive survey of Chinese villages and examines the role that small settlements play in the current national development framework and the physical transformations that occurred in the recent past.