Alexander’s A Pattern Language is an important text and focuses on the theory of diverse environmental spatial sustainability. With the contemporary digital development of villages, it is urgent that village spatial patterns are analyzed in a scientific and quantitative way in order to determine heritage village diversity. The village settlements in the Diqing region are typical representatives, having a changeable terrain, being large in number, and being multi-ethnic in China; in recent years, they have also faced slow development and limited conditions. However, few studies have focused on the multiple quantitative analysis of the diverse spatial patterns of village settlements in an ethnic minority region. Therefore, this study selects 2486 village settlements in Diqing and, using KED, NNI SSIA, etc., proposes a spatial pattern analysis framework (SPAF) based on pattern language theory. According to the spatial influencing factors, spatial analysis criteria are constructed to analyze the village spatial pattern types and subtypes. The results show that the region’s topographic conditions are the dominant factors that form the diversified village spatial patterns existent in the Diqing Prefecture. Among them, the dominant pattern of building villages along slopes with a small-population scale and large-dispersed settlements achieves a healthy and sustainable living environment that is oriented well, cost-saving, and conforms to nature. Meanwhile, the dominant pattern is also the reason for the inhibition of development due to inconvenient transportation and difficult management. Therefore, sustainable strategies should strike a balance between the two opposites. Based on the SPAF, spatial patterns can be effectively extracted for diverse village spaces, providing digital and visual references for the regeneration of contemporary rural areas.

It is necessary to advance traditional village sustainability by exploring the cultural dynamics integrated into contemporary heritage conservation. Jiangnan is located in a typical culturally integrated region of China that encompasses diverse traditional village heritage with variable spatial forms, influenced by a plurality of unique vernacular morphologies. To address the paucity of samples from culturally integrated regions, the simplistic digital quantitative indices, and the problem of non-specific cultural qualitative analyses, this research established a cultural spatial morphology form clue (CSMFC) at three cultural dimensions: Chinese family clan culture; natural ecological culture; vernacular feng shui culture. We constructed an index system and village morphology database comprising five types of traditional villages in Jiangnan. This research proposed a situational research method (SRM) based on metamodern theory to oscillate between quantitative metrics and the qualitative cultural context of 500 villages. The results demonstrate that village spatial morphology exhibits stepwise digital differentiation aligned with cultural boundaries, dynamically revealing the evolving relationship between village culture and spatial morphology. The implementation of an SRM can accurately map cultural distinctions, enhancing the scientific rigor and efficiency of traditional village cultural research and sustainable heritage conservation.