Discussion on characteristics of Chinese rural landscape and its planning objectives and contents

Rural landscape consists of a variety of agricultural land mosaics, which was evolved from the natural landscape through the intervening of human activities, thus it has both natural ecological as well as social characteristics. As the rapid progress of urbanization and township in China nowadays, its rural landscape has been suffering great changes and even damages. How to protect its traditional features and keep their integrality of local landscape in the rural area is the main target of rural landscape planning. It is also one of the primary trends of sustainable rural development in the 21th century. Firstly, the paper explains the concepts and meanings of rural landscape, and then points out the main characteristics of rural landscape in China. Secondly, it discusses the relationship between rural landscape planning and land use, and suggests that rural landscape planning is very important for the rural sustainable development in the future. Finally, a general discussion on objectives and contents of rural landscape planning is given.