The rural settlements of China are picked up from the land use vector map by interpreting the Thermatic Map of 2000. About 7.57×l0 5 rural settlements are calculated by the GIS software. The rural settlements density in the eastern area is larger than that in the western area which corresponds to the population densisy of China. The rural settlement density in the eastern provinces are higher while sparse in Tibet and Qinghai provinces. The average area of the rural settlement is 16.27 hm 2. The regional disparity of the rural

settlement scale is apparent. The average area of Northern China is bigger than that of Southern China. Those in the plain area is bigger than in the mountain area and those in the developed area is bigger than in the developing area. Chinese rural settlements are smaller and about 50.09% is between 2-9 hm 2 29.92% 10-21 hm 2

10.32% 22-34 hm 2

8.67% 35-104 hm 2 and only 1% more than 104hm 2. From the Lorenz curve we can see that about 80% of the rural settlements are 10-21 hm 2 and the number of 2-34 hm 2 takes up about 90%.When the scale is 34 hm 2

the slope of the curve is lowest and nearly smooth. In Hunan province whose average acrage is smaller about 84.76% of the rural settlements are 10-21 hm 2 .In Hebei province about 21.51% of the rural settlements are 10-21 hm 2 .The expotential distribution is calculated and the relevant equation between the area and the number of settlements at least a hm 2 N（a） = ca -1.865 is obtained by the log regression. B of Hunan province is the largest in the selective cases and that of Guangdong is the smallest. Although B of Shandong and Guangdong provinces is of little difference

the number of the settlements between 2-10 hm 2. In North province Shandong takes up 35.91% while that of South province Guangdong takes up 35.91%. The spatial distribution of the rural settlements is measured by the lacunarity index. The lacunarity index correlates with the rural settlement density. In the area where the rural settlement density is high the lacunarity is low

the distribution is even and the gap between the settlements is low. On the contrary

in the area that the rural settlement density is low the lacunarity is high

the distribution is uneven and the gap is high.