Spatial imagery (SI) provides an important framework for understanding how rural spatial transformation affects residents’ spatial cognition and supports sustainable rural planning. However, existing studies have mainly examined static spatial sections, with limited attention to longitudinal changes in residents’ SI, especially in micro-community spaces. This study takes Naobao village as a case and uses cognitive maps (CMs) and interviews to compare residents’ CM drawing processes, SI elements, and SI structures between the old and new villages. The results show that: (1) The old village follows a point-and-line-to-area CM drawing pattern, while the new village shows an area-oriented pattern from local areas to the whole. (2) In terms of SI elements, districts and paths dominate in the old village, whereas districts and landmarks are more prominent in the new village. (3) Regarding SI structure, the old village is mainly characterised by sequential CMs with relatively higher-level structures, while the new village is dominated by spatial CMs with relatively lower-level structures. This study developed a three-dimensional SI framework within the context of rural spatial transformation, which expands the theoretical framework and applicability of the SI model and provides guidance for spatial planning, community renewal, and sustainable development in similar rural tourism destinations.

This paper first takes the process of rural gentrification as the main line, selects the village of Annoyed bun in Hohhot City, Inner Mongolia Province, as the case area, conducts research on the characteristics of the remodeling of the living space of the village of the annoyed bun, and proposes the theoretical system of rural gentrification, the governance structure and the mechanism. Secondly, the research on tourism-based villages based on the coupling coordination degree model is carried out to determine the evaluation factors in the coupling index system of tourism-based villages according to the needs of tourists and then construct the evaluation index system of the coupling coordination degree model. Then, the entropy value method is used to calculate the weight of each index, and on the result of the weight of each index, the coupling coordination degree formula can be used to derive the comprehensive evaluation index and the fusion coordination degree value, and then analyze the example of the tourism-type village based on the coupling coordination degree model. The results show that on the value of the degree of integration and coordination, in the three years from 2015 to 2017, Hohhot City, Hohhot City, annoying package village ecology and tourism-type villages mainly show the role of mutual promotion, Hohhot City, towards the direction of mutual promotion between the two. This study promotes the revitalization, reconstruction and reorganization of village life, which objectively becomes a new path for constructing new rural areas and rejuvenation in China.