中文摘要：

西部山区由于生境条件差,很多地区面临较大的人口压力,生态问题和贫困问题长期交织在一起,不仅一直受政府扶贫工作的关注,也受区域乃至全球生态保护和社会发展相关组织的关注。本文主要从不同时间段、不同地区梳理了自20世纪初以来西部山区乡村聚落空间分布规律及其影响因素的研究,从理论、实证及生态系统等多角度对西部山区乡村聚落空间演化的过程及其成因机制进行了分析。作者认为随着多学科融合程度的加强,山区乡村聚落演化的研究逐步从以案例区分析为主的一般性的规律揭示走向以模式探寻为主的普适化的理论体系构建,对于山区乡村聚落,由于涉及更多的生态、贫困等多种区域发展问题,开展乡村聚落空间演化的综合性研究的需求会更加迫切,并在此基础上指出未来研究的方向。

英文摘要：

Spatial evolution of rural settlements has been a long-term research topic for all scholars.For poor conditions,most of mountain areas of western china face with the great population pressure,in addition,the ecological problem and the impoverished problem mingle with each other over a long period,which not only has received the government attention,but also get the attention of ecological protection organizations and social development organizations in regional level and global level.This paper mainly summarized the related research of spatial distribution law,spatial evolution characteristics and their causes of rural settlements since the 20th century.The development and introduction of human geography and rural geography in western countries gave birth to the rural settlement geography in mountain areas of western china.The birth of ＂new geography＂ and widespread utilization of measurement revolution and remote sensing technique promoted the general theory frame establishment and deepening spatial evolution pattern and mechanism research.During the rapid developing process of rural economy and society,the living space of farmers has expanded to bigger scope and the residential living activity intensity has became more and more strengthened.Therefore,the spatial distribution of rural settlements constantly change from the extensive dispersion to the moderate centralism would become the mainstream tendency in the future.The research shows that： along with the strengthening integration among different disciplines,rural settlement research has gradually evolved from general rule analysis based on cases to exploring the construction of theoretical system.