Abstract: The decline rural villages caused by the rapid urbanization have become a hot topic in China. Therefore, the government proposed the rural revitalization strategy. How to treat decline rural villages, to rationally plan the distribution of villages in rural revitalization, and to promote rural revitalization, remain questions that deserve consideration. As a highly urbanized country, Japan has experienced the decline, mergers and dissolutions of rural villages, which may have implications for Chinese rural development. This paper first analyzed the changes in the numbers, the population structure, the spatial distribution characteristics of rural villages, and the causing factors of the change of rural villages in different grades in Japan over the past 100 years, and then discussed the implications for Chinese rural development from Japan's experience in four aspects. The results showed that: 1) The larger the rural villages, the more backward the decline in timing sequence, however, the number of all grades of rural villages had decreased from 2000 to 2015 (late stage of urbanization); 2) From 1980 to 2015, the decrease rate of rural villages was higher in southwest and lower in northeast in Japan. The area with the highest decrease rate is on both sides of the Seto Inland Sea, both higher than 80%. 3) During 1980-2015, the villages with rural population growth were distributed in metropolitan areas, including Tokyo Metropolitan Area, Nagoya Metropolitan Area, Osaka Metropolitan Area. 4) The factors causing changes in progress in rural villages mainly included three aspects: the urbanization process, the policy of rural village merging, and the rural revitalization in selected area.

Key words: urbanization, mergers and dissolutions of rural villages, rural settlements, rural revitalization