A Systematic Review of the Last-Decade Rural Studies from a Geographical Perspective: A Comparison of Related Studies

Although the world has reached a highly urbanized stage, there is still a large rural population and a large rural area, and various rural problems to be solved. Many developing and underdeveloped countries have garnered little attention in rural studies and have even more complicated rural development problems.To clarify the intellectual contribution of rural studies and to integrate research into practice, in this study,we conducted a bibliometric analysis of the last 10 years of rural studies from a geographical perspective by comparing and integrating other related studies. CiteSpace was used to analyze the leading journals, keyword frequency and evolution, research hotspots, and research trends of 3530 articles. Our findings include four sections presented as main contents in details. In the end, we propose at least 10 elements to the rural geography framework based on the viewpoints of predecessors and future requirements.