A Study on Rural Vitality in Northwest Hilly Areas Based on PCA—A Case Study of Yigang Township in Tongwei County

The rural revitalization strategy is an important initiative to promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas in China in the new era, and rural vitality is of great significance to promote rural revitalization. Taking Yigang Town of Tongwei County as the research object, this paper first constructs an evaluation index system of rural vitality from four dimensions: population attractiveness, industrial development power, land bearing power and facility support power. On the basis of this study, principal component analysis is applied to find out the influence of indicators of different dimensions on rural vitality, and the rural vitality indices of 17 villages in Yigang Town are calculated. The reasons for the formation of vitality in different villages and the overall spatial distribution pattern of rural vitality in Yigang Town are analyzed. Finally, the vitality enhancement strategies of different types of villages in Yigang town are proposed in order to help rural revitalization. The strategy is as follows: They are: (1) nine villages with 52.94% of weak rural vitality should focus on attracting industries to move in and optimizing and upgrading industries; (2) six villages with 35.29% of balanced rural vitality should improve modern agriculture as the core and develop rural tourism moderately; (3) villages with 11.76% of strong rural vitality should promote the synergistic development of primary and tertiary industries to form economic development model with its own characteristics.