Abstract: China is the largest developing country in the world and a well-known agricultural country. China’s urbanization is a subject of great interest, one that has attracted the attention of people throughout the world. Whereas a handful of studies have assessed various aspects of urbanization (urban expansion, urban transition, urban-rural relationships, the spatial changes in urban and rural areas, motivations for sustaining rural places), little is known of how to retain the indigenous character of rural areas in terms of landscape design. In this paper, the authors set out to contribute to this significant gap. They used Chengdu City and Five Golden Flowers (FGF) village in Chengdu’s suburbs as case studies. A detailed description of the application of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City vision in Chengdu City was made; the Garden City vision was the key premise for FGF’s ecotourism industry and successful conservation of landscapes with indigenous character. An analysis of the post-ecotourism landscape in FGF was accomplished using a typology method. Finally a set of landscape design methods for retaining indigenous character was proposed. The main conclusion of this paper was as follows: rural ecotourism can contribute to maintaining the indigenous character of rapidly urbanizing rural landscapes with the use of appropriate inheritance and renovation ways. The findings here may provide useful information for decision making by urban planners and policy-makers.

Key words: garden city theory, indigenous character, Linpan, rural eco-tourism, rural landscape