The author’s doctoral research is primarily focused on analysing the issue of rural urbanisation as a key sustainable development challenge – based on the conviction that rural areas today must be studied on their own account and no longer simply understood as the counterpart to urban areas (Wood, 2010). Analysis of the “nested” maps allows us to observe the reality of a region at a given time and different scales, from province scale (500 km), regional scale (100km) to local scale (2km). This circular limit release the analyse from administrativ boundaries. Indeed, the author’s doctoral research is focused on analyzing of rural urbanization in China as a key sustainable development challenge – based on the conviction that rural areas today must be studied on their own account and no longer simply understood as the counterpart to urban areas.