Since they were inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List, ancient villages in rural China, which used to be relatively stable and closed communities, have embraced economic change that happened to the ways of life for the local residents as a result of the newly introduced economy and the flood of visitors. This paper takes Diaolou complex, a UNESCO Would Heritage site in China as a case study. It is found, after a seven-year study, that there is a significant correlation between the level of tourism development and the civic participation of local village residents. In this paper, a comparison is made between the conditions in three different ancient villages before and after they were recognized as World Cultural Heritage Sites. With a further analysis of the data provided by the current local authorities and travel agencies concerning the main sources of income and the new economic structure, we found that there are some discrepancies in tourism development among the three ancient villages. Furthermore, to provide a plausible explanation of the interaction between tourism development and the construction of local civil society and citizenship, this paper first articulates the concept of "citizenship" in the literature, and then examines the results from in-depth interviews and field researches. It is found that tourism development does bring about citizenship, viewed as a universal value, in the three adjacent ancient villages with similar governance patterns and similar traditions. In explaining the cultivation process and transformation mechanism of citizenship in traditional Chinese societies, this paper contributes to the studies in moral geography in China. © 2018, Science Press. All right reserved.
