After the turn of China's poverty reduction in 2020, relative poverty will run through the whole process of modernization, and sustainable development and poverty reduction are facing great challenges. Based on the study of poverty geography in China, this article expounds the connotation, scale analysis model, objects, evaluation and monitoring, path design, and development intervention of sustainable poverty reduction from the perspective of development geography. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) Sustainable poverty reduction refers to the ideological and practical paradigm of continuously reducing poverty and narrowing the development gap on the basis of establishing the development potential and motivation of households and local development. 2) The process of scale transformation reflects the spatial scale deconstruction and reconstruction of poverty reduction factors and decision-making implementation. 3) The objects of sustainable poverty reduction include absolute poverty families, relative poverty families, relative poverty villages, relative poverty townships (towns), and relative poverty counties. 4) The effect of sustainable poverty reduction and regional convergence can be analyzed using the five dimensional geographic capital indices and Euclidean spatial distance. 5) Sustainable poverty reduction requires the spatial integration of localization, regionalization, and globalization to promote the transition from traditional growth to high-quality development. 6) The development intervention of sustainable poverty reduction should highlight the local-dominant integration of endogenous and exogenous forces.

After 2020, China's anti-poverty program will move into a new stage of relative poverty governance. The inadequate development and multidimensional deprivation of functions such as housing, employment, education, medical care, sanitation, culture, and disaster prevention and reduction in rural settlements are important manifestations and causes of rural relative poverty. The governance of rural relative poverty must start from the overall optimization of rural settlements. In this study, on the basis of reviewing the relative poverty concept and by focusing on the internal connection of rural settlements and relative poverty governance, we analyzed the relationship between rural settlements and the occurrence of rural relative poverty, the optimization of rural settlements, and the establishment of a long-term mechanism of relative poverty governance; and proposed the optimization strategy of rural settlements based on relative poverty governance, in order to provide a theoretical basis for relative poverty governance and rural revitalization after 2020. The results show that: 1) The formation of rural relative poverty is closely related to the factors and functions of settlements, and is different spatially due to the differences in location, layout, scale, and form of rural settlements. 2) Rural settlements are the spatial basis for the establishment of a long-term mechanism to alleviate rural relative poverty; the establishment of the long-term governance mechanism of rural relative poverty should give full play to the functions of supporting factors and spatial carriers of rural settlements. 3) The optimization strategy of rural settlements based on relative poverty governance includes six aspects: revitalizing village industry, optimizing village spatial organization, strengthening village cultural identity, establishing green ecological villages, promoting multifunctional collaborative transformation of villages, and adopting targeted strategies.

Rural poverty has always been one of the practical challenges in China. The eradication of poverty is the basis for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and implementing the strategy of rural revitalization. Rural poverty has been a widely researched issue in different disciplines such as economics, sociology, political science, and psychology. From the perspective of each discipline, studies related to rural poverty have been increasing. Nevertheless, the results are short of spatial expression. The spatial characteristics of geography make it highly complementary to other disciplines in the study of rural poverty. In recent years, a large number of research results on rural poverty originated in the field of geography. Relevant research content mainly involves the origin, spatial distribution, and geographical characteristics of rural poverty. This study examined the relevant research results of geography on rural poverty, and summarized the research progress on its connotation and standards, measurement and spatial pattern, influencing factors and mechanism, and anti-poverty strategies, etc. The main problems in the progress of rural poverty research in recent years were identified. Issues and future research focus and directions have been proposed to provide a reference for further research in this field.

It is of great significance to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation and enhance development capacity and the ability to resist shocks in contiguous poverty-stricken areas. Economic resilience, as an indicator of the resistance, recovery, adjustment, and transformation ability of regional economic systems in response to shocks, can effectively reflect the ability to resist shocks and the risk of returning to poverty in contiguous poverty-stricken areas. Based on the data of 12 contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China, economic resilience was measured and compared by constructing a comprehensive index system and core evaluation variables, and a variety of regression models were used to identify the main influencing factors. The results show that: 1) The economic resilience of contiguous poverty-stricken areas is lower than non-contiguous poverty-stricken areas. In both types of areas economic resilience has been increasing year by year, but the growth rate of non-contiguous poverty-stricken areas is slightly faster. After decomposing the index, it was found that the difference in economic resilience between contiguous poverty-stricken areas and non-contiguous poverty-stricken areas is primarily due to the ability to adapt and adjust. 2) Luoxiao Mountains, Yanshan-Taihang Mountains, and Dabie Mountains have the highest mean values of economic resilience, while the border mountainous areas in western Yunnan Province, Liupan Mountains, and the Tibetan area of four provinces have the lowest mean values of economic resilience. 3) The economic resilience of most areas was increasing. The areas with higher economic resilience tend to grow faster, but the economic resilience of the Tibetan area of four provinces, Liupan Mountains, and Lvliang Mountains showed a downward trend. Among them, the decline in Lvliang Mountains is the most obvious. After decomposing the economic resilience of different regions, it was found that the differences in adaptation and adjustment capabilities were the largest in different regions, and the differences in innovation and transformation capabilities were the smallest. 4) Variables such as geographical location, assets investment per capita, dependence on international trade, the level of self-sufficiency in finance, expenditure on education, and the number of patents have significant effects on the economic resilience and its growth in poverty-stricken areas. 5) Poverty alleviation policy is conducive to enhancing economic resilience. Areas with low economic resilience are highly dependent on poverty alleviation policies, among which the Tibetan areas in four provinces, Liupan Mountains, and the border mountainous areas of western Yunnan are most heavily dependent on poverty alleviation policies.

Addressing regional poverty is the prerequisite for completing the process of building a moderately well-off society in all aspects. As a concentrated area of China's impoverished rural population, the study on the spatial and temporal patterns of poverty in hilly and mountainous areas and its driving mechanism is of great theoretical significance for the transformation and development of poor areas and rural revitalization. Based on the perspective of regional poverty, this study, taking Yudu County of Jiangxi Province as an example, used the standard deviational ellipse, spatial autocorrelation, kernel density estimation, and geographical detector model to describe the geographical pattern of rural poverty and its differentiation characteristics in the county, identify the leading factors of rural poverty, and reveal the driving mechanism of poverty in hilly and mountainous areas. The results demonstrated that the phenomenon of spatial agglomeration exists in the occurrence of rural poverty in hilly and mountainous areas, and the aggregation effect decreases with the proper implementation of poverty alleviation policies. The dominant influencing factors responsible for the spatial differentiation of rural poverty in Yudu County include slope of the terrain, traffic accessibility to town centers from administrative villages, road network density, and the number of public service agencies. As time goes, the influence of natural resource endowment conditions on the spatial differentiation of rural poverty has been weakened while geographic conditions gradually plays a leading role. The leading factors influencing the spatial differentiation of poverty in hilly and mountainous areas varied at different stages. Rural poverty in hilly and mountainous areas has its natural and cultural roots. The formulation and implementation of scientific poverty reduction policies should be based on deepening the theoretical understanding of poverty occurrence mechanism, and promoting the alleviation of regional and individual poverty in a coordinated way, so as to realize the transformation, development, and rural revitalization of poor areas.

Under the influence of rapid urbanization and industrialization, the problems of "rural diseases" faced by rural areas, especially the deep poverty areas are prominent, affecting rural sustainable development. There is an urgent need to better understand the process and characteristics of rural regional system change, identify restricting factors of rural development, and propose the suitable paths of rural revitalization for promoting rural sustainable development. This study took Yangyuan County as an example, investigated rural central agglomeration and growth from the perspective of land-use change, and revealed the evolution characteristics of rural human-land relationship in deep poverty areas. The results show that: 1) With the continuous reduction of arable land, the expansion intensity of villages is higher than that of township government seats and the county seat. 2) The agglomeration degree of production factors in the county seat, towns, and villages is imbalanced, resulting in a declining central agglomeration from the areas near the county seat to township government seats, and to remote rural villages. 3) Affected by the factors of traffic, location, and natural environment, areas near the county seat, better-located townships, and areas near transportation arteries are more likely to gather production factors and become high-value areas for rural growth. 4) The problem of rural resident population outflow is serious in deep poverty areas, causing rural hollowing with a phenomenon of declining population- increasing land. The article emphasized that the economic development level and urban-rural connection should be improved to enhance the county seat's ability to facilitate development in the countryside, and ruralization should be promoted alongside urbanization. Besides, it is necessary to implement comprehensive land consolidation in hollowed villages and cultivate rural social capital to promote endogenous rural development.

Absolute poverty will be completely eliminated in China in 2020. However, due to the imbalance between urban and rural development, the differentiation of basic public services between urban and rural areas, and the lack of robust internal motivations in some special groups of people, relative poverty will become a long-lasting problem and a key factor hindering social and economic progress and social stability. Therefore, the study of China's relative poverty will provide a theoretical reference for the establishment of a long-term mechanism to solve the problem of relative poverty in rural China in the post-2020 period. Taking farming households as the research object and 2018 as the time frame of the research, this study systematically analyzed the connotation and characteristics of relative poverty in the post-2020 period and built a measurement and evaluation index system for relative poverty. It also defined the relative poverty line based on a multidimensional perspective and conducted an empirical analysis with Changshou District of Chongqing Municipality as an example. The research generated the following results: 1) The relative poverty index is a useful measure that defines the relative poverty line from a multidimensional perspective of materials, development, ability, and social security. The empirical analysis demonstrates that the relative poverty index is more in line with the actual situation than the single income method in defining the relative poverty line and it can fully meet the needs of reflecting or quantifying actual living conditions of people. 2) Because of the weak support from industry, less opportunities to participate in the cooperative development and skill training of labors, lower level of education, and the fact that more than a third of the relatively poor households are elderly, disabled and seriously ill persons, the relative poverty population are less likely to improve their quality of life, strengthen their capacities, and have access to development. 3) Poverty alleviation policies, economic foundations, social security, and personal conditions are important factors affecting relative poverty. Among them, regional policies are the external causes of relative poverty, economic factors are the key to stimulate the formation of relative poverty, social factors are the basic impetus to prevent the formation of relative poverty, and personal factors are the internal cause of relative poverty.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of poverty reduction is a hot topic in international poverty reduction strategy research in recent years, and it is also a key issue for China to deepen and improve the quality of poverty reduction in the future. Based on the criteria of "rural poor people have no worry about food and clothing and have access to compulsory education, basic medical services, and safe housing", this study constructed an index system for evaluating the effectiveness of poverty reduction, which covers economic, demographic, social, and green development dimensions that include 12 indexes. Entropy weight and fuzzy set methods were used to reveal the effectiveness of poverty reduction in 126 cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the spatial autocorrelation theory was introduced to analyze the spatial differentiation and evolution characteristics of poverty reduction effectiveness in the region. The results show that: 1) During 2011 and 2017, the Yangtze River Economic Belt as a whole achieved remarkable results in poverty reduction, but there were obvious spatial differences among different areas, and there was great potential for poverty reduction and improvement in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. 2) During the study period, the Moran's I of the cities was greater than 0 and increased year by year, the effectiveness of poverty reduction in the cities showed a positive spatial correlation and the agglomeration characteristics steadily enhanced. 3) There were regional differences in the local indicators of spatial association (LISA) value of the poverty reduction effectiveness index during the study period, and the local spatial autocorrelation between the upper and the middle reaches was more significant. Especially in the concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas, it showed the correlation characteristic of continuous agglomeration. The research results can provide a reference for promoting sustainable poverty reduction and coordinating regional economic, social, and ecological developments in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Enhancing the livelihood sustainability of out-of-poverty farming households in poor mountainous areas is not only the realistic demand for rural poverty alleviation in the new era, but also the urgent demand of rural revitalization. Taking into consideration livelihood capital, livelihood strategy and livelihood environment, this study established a livelihood sustainability evaluation index system of out-of-poverty farming households, and used the household survey data of the out-of-poverty households in the Longnan mountainous area to evaluate their livelihood sustainability and identify livelihood barriers. The results show that: 1) From river valley, the middle mountain to the high mountain area, and with the passage of time since a household was out of poverty, livelihood sustainability of the out-of-poverty households decreased in turn, and the livelihood sustainability of work-oriented type and agriculture-industry complementary type are higher than other farmers. 2) The proportion of farmers whose livelihood is unsustainable in Longnan mountain area is 28.83%, and the proportion of farming households with unsustainable livelihoods is higher in high-mountain area, traditional farming type, and late out-of-poverty households, while the proportion of farmers who have unsustainable livelihoods is lower in river valleys, agriculture-industry complementary type, work-oriented type, and early out-of-poverty households. 3) Out-of-poverty households with unsustainable livelihoods are all faced with multiple livelihood barriers, and nearly two-thirds of them are faced with multidimensional capital environment barriers and multi-factor barriers. 4) In view of the multiple livelihood barriers faced by the out-of-poverty households with unsustainable livelihoods, targeted multidimensional livelihood intervention should be implemented for different categories of households.

The poverty alleviation targets have downscaled to the farming household unit in China. Developing and improving the measurement method for multidimensional poverty at the farming household scale has become the key to accurately allocate the resources and improve the efficiency of poverty alleviation. In this study, a comprehensive framework of ability-assets-environment multidimensional poverty assessment was constructed based on human-environment-activities relationship theories. Taking the Qinling-Daba Mountains area as an example, this study measured the multidimensional poverty of surveyed households. Multidimensional poverty households were identified and compared with the designated poor households. The impact mechanism of multidimensional poverty was also explored. Finally, the multidimensional poverty households were divided into different types according to the deprivation dimensions. The research results show that: 1) There were 245 multidimensional poverty households and 239 non-multidimensional poverty households. With regard to the scores of the capacity dimension, the assets dimension, and the environment dimension, there were great differences between multidimensional and non-multidimensional poor households. 2) The majority (84.08%) of the multidimensional poverty households overlapped with the designated poor households. Furthermore, the degree of poverty of multidimensional poor households was deeper in both comprehensive and individual dimensions. 3) The occurrence of multidimensional poverty was mainly influenced by the weakness and deprivation of development ability and production ability of the households, financial and physical assets for activities, geographical locations and conditions of the environment. 4) There were four types of multidimensional poverty households, namely, development deficiency type, compound poverty type, severe living environment type, and comprehensive poverty type.

Poverty has multidimensional attributes, and it has become a consensus to study poverty from a multidimensional perspective according to different social groups and backgrounds. In order to measure the multidimensional poverty situation in the rural areas where the poor population is concentrated in Hainan Province, we expanded the index system based on the exit criteria for targeted poverty alleviation fulfilling the basic needs of food and clothing and guaranteeing compulsory education, basic medical care, and housing, and established a multidimensional poverty assessment conceptual model for rural households in Hainan Province that covers education, health, housing, livelihood, and income indicators. Then, based on household survey data from 3924 households in 70 towns and 134 poor villages of Hainan Province in 2018, we used the double threshold Alkire-Foster (A-F) method to evaluate the multidimensional poverty status of rural households and villages, and then used the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to analyze the spatial heterogeneity of the influencing factors of multidimensional poverty in villages. The study results show that: 1) The incidence of multidimensional poverty of the surveyed households was 18.22%. But the incidence of multidimensional poverty in villages with severe multidimensional poverty is not necessarily high. 2) The four indicators of farming households' asset status, cooking fuels, family members' diseases, and family members’ highest academic qualifications contribute the most to multidimensional poverty, while the contribution ratio of indicators belonging to the standard of fulfilling basic needs of food and clothing and guaranteeing compulsory education, basic medical care, and housing, as well as income are generally not high. The multidimensional poverty in the contiguous poverty areas in the central and western regions of the province is mainly manifested by poor asset conditions, unclean cooking fuels, high prevalence of disease of family members, and lower education levels. 3) The GWR model analysis showed that as the most important influencing factors of multidimensional poverty, spatial heterogeneity of the estimated coefficients of the four variables, gender of the household head, education level of the household head, ratio of female labor force, and dependency ratio, have very obvious impacts. In general, areas with more female-headed and low-education attainment individual headed households tend to be more prone to multidimensional poverty, and their impacts increased from east to west and from north to south, separately. With an increasing trend from north to south, the effect of the proportion of female labor force is negative and that of the dependency ratio is positive, which reflects the typical regional characteristics of weak labor force and relatively more industrious women in Hainan poverty-stricken areas.

Establishing a multi-objective development evaluation system for poverty-stricken households to realize the accurate identification and dynamic monitoring of relative poverty under different development goals has become an urgent need of poverty alleviation and development in the new stage of rural poverty alleviation. Taking into consideration the strategies of targeted poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, and sustainable development, this study designed a "goal fulfillment degree" Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (G-TOPSIS) multi-objective development evaluation model that reveals the development level and development gap of poverty-stricken households under the short-, medium-, and long-term goals, and detected the influencing factors of poverty reduction of farming households at different development levels based on geographical detector. Taking Fugong County, Yunnan Province as the study area, the results show that: 1) At present, there is a large number of farming households in the study area that are still in absolute poverty, and there is still a great pressure to tackle the poverty problem. Therefore, comprehensive poverty alleviation is the most urgent development goal of Fugong County. Farming households that are out of absolute poverty are still in relative poverty and have high poverty vulnerability. They are still far from the average development level of rural residents nation-wide and in the province. Therefore, the task of preventing and alleviating relative poverty in Fugong County is arduous. 2) Under the short-term goal, the main factors contributing to poverty are the number of years of education for the labor force, sanitary toilets, safe housing, per capita net income of the family, and family health; under the medium- and long-term goals, compared with the national and provincial levels, the main development weaknesses are per capita net income of the family, education for the labor force, and safe housing. 3) Affected by infrastructure, terrain, economic geographical location, natural resources, and traffic location, the spatial distribution characteristics of poor farming households at different development levels are very different. The lower the development level of farming households, the stronger the spatial heterogeneity, and the greater the impact of geographical environment. The research results can provide efficient technical decision-making support for the implementation of national precision poverty reduction strategies, rural revitalization strategies, and sustainable development strategies.

Industrial revitalization is the core content and a breakthrough point of the strategy of rural revitalization. With the change of rural functions, leisure tourism, catering and accommodation, cultural experience, health care, and elderly care industries in rural areas not only can make use of the rural resources, but also can meet the needs of urban and rural residents and thus have become alternative paths to promote rural innovation and entrepreneurship, stimulate rural vitality, and broaden the channels for farming households to increase income. Speed up the transformation and upgrading of rural tourism industry and improving the consumption structure of rural tourists are not only an important starting point for the implementation of the strategy of rural revitalization, but also a major practice of "turning green mountains into golden mountains and silver mountains". As a common result of economic and social developments, the lock-in effect is gradually emerging in the development of rural tourism industry in China. In order to ensure the sustainable development of rural tourism industry in accordance with local conditions, this study examined the relevant theories and the development status of Chinese and international rural tourism industry. First, expert consultation and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methods were combined to determine the main control factors of the regional lock-in effect of rural tourism industry, analyze the relationship between the factors that affect the development of rural tourism industry, study the mechanism of the regional lock-in of rural tourism industry, and build a multiple lock-in mechanism framework of the comprehensive effect of internal factors and external environment. Under the influence of traditional small-farmer rationale, the dynamic factors of rural resources endowment, operation and management, talent and technology, stakeholder participation, capacity of village collectives, institution and policy, market demand, and other factors form a positive feedback mechanism, which continuously strengthens the regional lock-in effect of rural tourism industry. Based on the analysis of the positive and negative effects of multiple lock-in, Guantou Village, a typical rural tourism village in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, was selected as the case study area. In 2005, Guantou Village set foot on the road of rural tourism development based on the large-scale management of agritainment by relying on the scenic sites and providing supporting tourism infrastructure for these sites. Through the field survey of Guantou Village, in-depth interviews were conducted with different research subjects including farmers, ordinary villagers, village leaders, and tourists. In total there are 110 farmers and 3081 beds in the village at present. This study examined the characteristics of cognitive lock-in, market lock-in, tourism product lock-in, and business model lock-in of the tourism industry in the village, and made a comprehensive comparative analysis of other relevant cases. Finally, the article put forward three characteristic paths: the service quality improvement path of market specialization locking and disarding outdated operation; the cultural value activation path of product differentiation locking and discarding homogeneity and low quality, and the co-development, sharing, and win-win path of mode unification locking and discarding closed-up individualization, so as to facilitate the revitalization of rural tourism industry and the construction of beautiful countryside.

Based on a multi-factor comprehensive perspective, a conceptual model of micro-scale rural regional system was constructed with land use and livelihood dimensions. Taking Shangwang Village in Xi'an City as an example, and using remote sensing images, survey questionnaires, and interview data, this study explored the transformation of land use and the livelihood change of farmers in a "suburban village". On this basis, four "scenery-surrounding villages" with different location characteristics and development types were compared and analyzed, and the following conclusions were obtained: 1) With the scaling-up and specialization of rural tourism development, the land use of Shangwang Village has gradually become diversified, compounded, and tourism-focused. The combination of farmers' livelihood strategies begin to change, and the correlation between employment, income, consumption, and tourism continues to increase. Shangwang Village has been transformed from a traditional agricultural village to a destination for rural tourism. 2) The transformation and development of Shangwang Village is the result of the comprehensive effect of internal and external factors. Its superior location is the basis of the transformation and development, and the timely intervention and regulation of the government is an important support. The development of the tourist market of rural tourism is its external driving force, and the rational choice of farmers is its internal driving force. 3) The differences between the "suburban village" and the "scenery-surrounding villages" in terms of terrain condition, resources endowment, and tourist market due to their different locations have led to the differentiation of the rural tourism development and have affected their transformation and development processes.

As a multi-level and organic regional system composed of different levels of nodes, a village and town system is the spatial carrier of rural factor agglomeration and implementing the strategy of rural revitalization. It is of great importance to build a rank-size appropriate, livable, and efficient village and town system and promote the strategy of rural revitalization scientifically by examining the logical relationship between the village and town system and rural revitalization, and exploring the spatial optimization path of different types of rural village and town systems. Based on the sampling data of 356 villages and 14 towns in Feng County of Jiangsu Province, this study analyzed the agglomeration capacity of population, agricultural, and non-agricultural factors, spatial polarization characteristics, and the coordination pattern of housing-jobs in Feng County by constructing the evaluation system of village and town system from the two dimensions of rank-level appropriateness and the coordination degree of housing-jobs. This study then identified the spatial types of rural revitalization based on the division of different types of villages, and finally, proposed rural revitalization paths and specific measures for different spatial types. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) The village and town system of Feng County is characterized by relatively stable rank distribution, weak spatial polarization, relative imbalance of housing-jobs in some areas, and insufficient motivation of rural revitalization. 2) According to the characteristics of factor agglomeration and housing-job coordination, the villages can be divided into six types—weak employment functional type with lagging population and non-agricultural factors (I), weak employment functional type with lagging population and agricultural factors (II), low-level housing-job coordination type with relatively lagging population and non-agricultural factors (III), high-level housing-job coordination type with relatively coupled factors (IV), weak residential functional type with lagging non-agricultural factors (V), and weak residential functional type with lagging agricultural factors (VI). 3) Based on the result of village spatial type identification, this study further delineated the core area, peripheral area, and potential area of promoting rural revitalization in the future; from the perspective of cultivating the growth pole of rural revitalization, building the demonstration area of rural housing-job coordination, improving the self-development ability of the peripheral area, and promoting the coordination of housing-jobs at the county level by undertaking the transfer of resource factors in potential area, this study developed the basic thoughts and suggested specific paths of the rural revitalization strategy.