Informing rural landscape design through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP): a case study of Wukeshu Village

The rural landscape design of Yi villages in Yunnan lacks systematic and quantitative evaluation frameworks. This gap makes it difficult to effectively integrate ecological, living, and productive elements. To address this issue, this study establishes a multi-level evaluation index system based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to identify and quantify the key factors influencing rural landscape design. Expert weighting results indicate that the living landscape is the most influential factor, followed by the ecological landscape and the productive landscape. Traditional dwellings, historical relics, and mountain landscapes are identified as core spatial elements. This research provides a structured paradigm for rural landscape optimization and scientific support for rural revitalization, cultural heritage conservation, and sustainable tourism development in multi-ethnic regions of Southwest China. The proposed framework is applicable to similar rural landscape design contexts and is particularly instructive for minority areas that have been understudied.