Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

Yanbian autonomous prefecture has achieved rapid economic growth over the past 40 years since China’s reform and opening-up policies. In particular, the Yan-Long-Tu region, which includes three cities of Yanji, Longjing and Tumen, was set up as the strategic center of the development of Northeast Asian Tumen River, as well as the center of eastern area of Jilin Province. However, the population of Korean Chinese group has showed big decline through migration, due to a large labor migration to South Korea. This article presents types of rural areas and analyses its characteristics as the result of population outflow. We take 169 villages in Yan-Long-Tu area as research areas, extracting population and natural factors through field investigation and GIS analysis. Finally, the areas were divided into three types of rural areas including Population sharp decline type, Urban rural mixed type, Full-time farm household type, with their characteristics identified.