Regional Differences and Dynamic Changes in Rural China: the Study of 1996 and 2006 National Agricultural Census

This paper is a further study of rural China based on the study of the first national agricultural census in 1996 (Fanfani and Brasili, 2003). The main emphasis is regionalization of rural China according to the second national agricultural census in 2006, utilizing the same or at least similar indicators applied in the previous analysis. The main data include the households and non-households, employment, education and agricultural production of total 30 indicators for 31 provinces and municipalities. The methodology applied here is principal component analysis and cluster analysis. Hence we compare the two regionalization maps and get a visual perception about the changes in rural China.