Abstract
Rural governance plays a significant role in constructing national governance systems and promoting rural development. An accurate understanding of the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of rural governance demonstration villages is conducive to giving full play to their leading, demonstration and radiating roles and further promoting the modernization of rural governance systems and governance capacity. Therefore, this study uses Moran's I analysis, local correlation analysis, kernel density analysis and a geographic concentration index to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of rural governance demonstration villages. Moreover, this study proposes a conceptual framework to construct the cognition of rural governance and uses Geodetector and vector data buffer analysis methods to explore the internal influence mechanism of their spatial distribution. The results show the following: (1) The spatial distribution of rural governance demonstration villages in China is unbalanced. The distribution difference between the two sides of the "Hu line" is significant. The peak appears at 30° N and 118° E. (2) The rural governance demonstration villages in China are clustered, which forms a high-density core area, a sub-high density belt, two sub-high-density centers and several single core concentration areas. Additionally, the hot spots of rural governance demonstration villages in China are mostly located on the eastern coast, tending to cluster in places with superior natural conditions, convenient transportation, and excellent economic development. (3) Based on the distribution characteristics of Chinese rural governance demonstration villages, this study proposes a "one core, three axes and multiple centers" spatial structure to optimize the distribution of rural governance demonstration villages. (4) A rural governance framework system consists of a governance subject subsystem and influencing factor subsystem. The results of Geodetector show that under the mutual leading role of the three governance subjects, the distribution of rural governance demonstration villages in China is the result of multiple factors. Among them, nature is the basic factor, economy is the key factor, politics is the dominant factor, and demographic is the important factor. The interaction network formed by general public budget expenditure and total power of agricultural machinery affects the spatial distribution pattern of the rural governance demonstration villages in China.