The coordinated development of urban and rural areas is an important measure for releasing the potential of domestic demand and promoting industrial upgrading. The development of rural industries in metropolitan areas, especially those with rural characteristics, is an important pathway for achieving comprehensive rural revitalization and promoting urban and rural integration in the metropolitan area. Based on the development goal of promoting rural industries in metropolitan areas, this study constructed a performance evaluation index system, including industrial development, industrial integration, rural construction, and farmers’ life, and applied the TOPSIS method to evaluate the development of rural characteristic industries in the metropolitan area of Xi’an. The results indicated that the overall development performance of rural characteristic industries in the metropolitan area was at a medium level. The developmental performance at the level of “primary industry-secondary industry-tertiary industry” integration was relatively good, with a certain extension of the industrial chain and expansion of industrial functions, and certain economic benefits were created in this process. However, the development of rural characteristic industries has not effectively driven the development of rural society. In terms of space, the development of rural characteristic industries in the metropolitan area presents a circular distribution feature that decreases from the core circle to the outer circle. In terms of types, there are significant differences in the development levels between the different types, and the weaknesses of different industries vary. Based on these considerations, the key pathway for the collaborative and typified development of regional characteristic industries is proposed.

Rural governance is the basic requirement for promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, so it is closely related to the implementation of the national rural revitalization strategy and the realization of the modernization goal of national governance. Taking 2189 rural governance demonstration villages and towns in China as the research object, the spatial distribution structure and influencing factors of rural governance demonstration villages and towns were explored in this study by using the nearest neighbor index method, the kernel density estimation method, the grid dimension analysis method and the spatial autocorrelation analysis method. The results show that the spatial distribution of rural governance demonstration villages and towns in China tends to be clustered, and the spatial differentiation is obvious. The analysis of kernel density in the rural governance demonstration villages and towns presents a number of kernel centers in space, and the distribution pattern of secondary centers is in the form of a belt distribution, which is formed by decreasing and spreading around the surrounding kernel centers. The rural governance demonstration village and town system features obvious scale-free areas and fractal characteristics. The spatial distribution of the rural governance demonstration villages and towns is mainly influenced by natural and cultural factors, among which, the topography and lake water systems are the main influencing factors. Among the humanistic factors, the social economy, transportation and national culture are the main influencing factors, while the influence of population distribution is not significant.

Tourism can cause serious environmental pollution due to high consumption levels. With the development of tourism in Mount Wutai, the environmental pressure has been increasing. This study explored the influences of tourist arrivals in Mount Wutai, ticket revenue from domestic tourists in Mount Wutai, national passenger turnover, energy intensity, GDP per capita in Wutai County and GDP per capita in China on the tourism ecological footprint in Mount Wutai from 2005 to 2019. The extended STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) model was constructed by using principal component regression. The results were as follows: (1) The tourism ecological footprint in Mount Wutai increased during the study period, from 27798.07 gha in 2005 to 67467.36 gha in 2019. (2) From 2005 to 2019, tourist arrivals in Mount Wutai, ticket revenue from domestic tourists in Mount Wutai, national passenger turnover, GDP per capita in Wutai County and GDP per capita in China grew, while energy intensity declined. (3) The extended STIRPAT model showed that the elasticity coefficients of tourist arrivals in Mount Wutai, ticket revenue from domestic tourists in Mount Wutai and national passenger turnover were 0.086%, 0.075% and 0.164%, respectively, which indicated that the tourism ecological footprint in Mount Wutai would increase by 0.086%, 0.075% and 0.164%, respectively, when those parameters increased by 1%; the elasticity coefficients of GDP per capita in Wutai County and GDP per capita in China increased at an escalating pace, but the environmental Kuznets curve did not exist, indicating that economic growth did not alleviate the environmental pressure during the study period; the elasticity coefficient of energy intensity was -0.108%, which indicated that the tourism ecological footprint would decrease by 0.108% when energy intensity increased by 1%. Therefore, the implementation of effective policies and technological innovation would significantly reduce the tourism ecological footprint in Mount Wutai.

The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is a major deployment strategy made by the Party Central Committee on the “agriculture-rural areas-peasants” work. As a special industrial form, rural tourism fully conforms to the general standards of the rural revitalization strategy in terms of economy, society, culture, ecology, and other key aspects. Therefore, it is an important driving force and an effective way to solve the “agriculture-rural areas-peasants” problems and to realize the rural revitalization strategy. This study combines the rural revitalization of ethnic villages and rural tourism in former deep poverty areas, and explores the coupling and coordination between rural tourism and rural revitalization. On the basis of consulting the relevant literature and through qualitative and quantitative research methods, an evaluation index system for the coupling and coordination of rural tourism and rural revitalization in ethnic villages in previously deep poverty areas was constructed. Taking Didigu Village in Ebian Yi Autonomous County as a research case, this study analyzed the comprehensive development level, coupling degree and coupling coordination of its rural tourism and rural revitalization system, then selected the factors and indicators which affect the coordinated development of the coupling of rural tourism and rural revitalization in ethnic villages in order to discuss the leading factors which restrict regional development, and finally put forward targeted optimization countermeasures and suggestions. The results show that rural tourism plays a significant role in guiding rural revitalization, and the interaction between rural tourism and rural revitalization is increasingly enhanced, with large room for future growth. For the former deep poverty minority village, the government’s policies, funds, talents and technologies for rural revitalization and rural tourism development play an important role in their coupled development. In order to further improve the coupling degree of rural revitalization and rural tourism, one suggestion is that the government should firmly exercise a top-level design function to improve the quality and efficiency of rural revitalization in order to accelerate the revitalization of rural culture and to drive the improvement of rural tourism quality, thus improving the quality of rural tourism and promoting the revitalization of rural areas.