فصلنامه پژوهشهای روستایی
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 5، بهار 1390)

IntroductionSpatial planning concepts have become prominent in discussions and strategies that focus on regional and rural development. At the heart of this policy framework is an understanding that competition between regions is one of the primary driving forces influencing social and economic development and hence cohesion. It is also understood that some regions have greater advantages in terms of their location and resources than others. Recognition of the fact that resources and conditions for social and economic development vary spatially, gave rise to the concept of territorial cohesion. Rural point is domain in Iran. Although the term rural is frequently used, it is rarely defined. This issue is compounded by the choice of spatial units that form the basis for analysis. The literature on the topic of rural development is populated by uncritical use of terms such as rural regions, rural areas and rurality. The failure to accurately define what rural and its geographic distribution is, hinders evaluation of social, demographic and economic changes and obfuscates the results of any analysis. The concept of Rurality draws attention to rural– urban linkages and interactions of this human settlement in Geographical space of territory. Styles, livelihoods and urban life dominance in rural area and rural adaptation, transform the face and economic, social and ecological structures of this area and give a new form to it that redound to a diversity of economic and social pattern and ecological bed of rurality and for this reason, there comes variable and broad development needs and also planning and management needs of rural people. Therefore, spatial analysis of rurality gradation, could prevent from similar planning for all rural areas and conduct the authority of development and rural planning to plan Co-ordinate with current conditions and potentials of each area, for equality and geographical unity in rural areas. On the other hand, measurement of rurality redounds to deliberation in fence of rural community's way with livelihood structure and native actions as a cultural heritage. With this viewpoint, many studies were accomplished in the world literature in these phases and micro and macro rural development dominion, and the results of those studies are the basis for rural development planning and the necessity of such studies are observed in Iran too.MethodologyHence using synthetic approach and with descriptive- analyzing methodology for this study, contour and data were gathered from questionnaires designed with standards and criterion using the world experience, in 21 rurals point in central village of Khodabande county, by means of FUZZY- TOPSIS technique for rurality.Results & DiscussionMeasurement results show that Zavajer, Lachovan and Dotape sofla villages have a low degree of rurality compared to the other rural areas and this model could well express the rurality gradation among the rural points of this region. So the results of the study and observation are adopted with the current objectivity in rural settlement. ConclusionWe believe that the proposed research will add information and therefore improve the quality of the discussion about how to define “rural Iran” and the impact different definitions can potentially have on the policies and decisions that affect the lives of all Iranian rural people. We also believe that the proposed research can contribute to community planning and rural policy development at a provincial and national level. Currently, even the most basic decisions, such as what constitutes rural points, are made in a relative vacuum of information concerning which citizens see them as rural and in understanding the utility of rural research using large data sets. These two issues mean that policy makers are now making decisions without the knowledge of whether they are relevant to the population they are making the decision for or how much confidence they should have in research evidence that is presented to them. The proposed research will at least raise awareness of these issues and begin the process of providing answers to these important questions using empirically based evidence. Therefore, On the basis of all analyses performed, it can be concluded that division of rural areas into types in our rurality degree is reasonable. The differences between defined types of rural areas are significant from different point of views and have to be considered in rural development planning and preparation of a long-term rural development state policy. For rural areas of significant characteristics with particular problems and situations, suitable and accordant rural development measures have to be prepared and implemented.

Tourism has recently been introduced and recognized as one of the strategies for rural development and poverty reduction especially in developing countries and been implemented and proved successful in some areas. Tourism development in rural areas is seen as an agent both for rural economic regeneration and as a way of contributing to cultural and environmental conservation. These researchers contend that tourism has many advantages over other economic sectors, making it an effective tool for poverty alleviation. These advantages include: providing opportunities for linkages with other local industries and livelihood activities, thus increasing the scope of local participation, being able to build upon a wide resource base especially on natural and cultural capital which are assets to the poor despite the few export and diversification options usually they access to, being labor intensive and small scale and opportunities to employ women and addressing gender inequality. Given this comparative advantage, it is recommended that the poverty agenda be incorporated more explicitly into national tourism plans and strategies to enhance the participation and opportunities for the poor (WTO, 2002). However, the existing tourism literature stream, has recently been criticized for its lack of focus on rural livelihoods and poverty reduction and being too focused on tourism development specifically, with some contending that this deficiency can be addressed using a Sustainable Livelihood Approach (Ashley, Roe and Goodwin 2001;UNWTO, 2004b(. In the 1980s, the SLA was introduced as a new approach to poverty reduction and rural development. MethodologyThis research is descriptive-analytical in nature and uses a case study method to investigate the impacts of tourism on rural development of the village of Baraghan in Savojbolagh county of Tehran province. Time frame of the research has been between 23 November 2009 and 20 august 2010. Data were collected comes from different sources i.e. questionnaire-based household survey, interviews, secondary data and observations. To conduct this survey, questionnaires have been given out among 64 rural families have been chosen via random sampling method among the whole 202 village households in 2010. Semi structured interviews have also been carried out with 15 individuals in order to obtain their more detailed perspectives and experiences with tourism in the village and associated changes, complementing the information acquired from household survey. The research employed an indicator approach to examine the tourism status of the village and the application of sustainable livelihood approach in this context. The main way of developing indicators has been a top-down approach, developing indicators from literature and by experts. The indicators selected under the guideline of the sustainable livelihoods for tourism approach developed (SLFT) by Shen, constituted of 6 main components namely tourism context, livelihood strategies/activities, livelihood assets, institutional arrangements, vulnerability contexts and livelihood outcomes. Indicators under each component were then slightly refined to better reflect the actual situation of the case (table 1). Indicators developed are merely tools to facilitate an understanding of how tourism works in the village. The data pertaining to the first five components of SLFT framework were collected via interviews, secondary data and observations. Data related to the 6th component, i.e. livelihood outcomes, were obtained via household survey questionnaire given out randomly among rural residents. These data (pertaining to livelihood outcomes) also reflect sustainability status of Baraghan's tourism development.Research FindingsTourism context of Baraghan: the main visitors of the village are those who are indigenously from Baraghan, but who have immigrated to larger cities like Tehran and Karaj, coming back to the village for spring and summer which are considered tourist seasons of the village. Of over 500 dwelling houses in the village, about a half is considered second houses i.e. population nearly doubles during these seasons. Most visitors come from the cities of Tehran, Karaj, Hashtgerd, Nazaraabd, Chalous, Noshahr and most of them are daily tourists of second house owners. According to the local statistics of the village, during tourist seasons, on average, 20-30 thousand tourists are visiting the village weekly. Findings show that tourism has a diverse range of positive and negative impacts on different local livelihood assets and activities of the village. The summary of some of these impacts have been demonstrated in table 2. It appears that tourism development has brought in changes to other local livelihood activities, thus its (mainly complementary) impacts on other local activities are accepted. For example, one of the outcomes of tourism development is the drastic increase in commodity prices, especially land prices leading to unrestrained land trade which, unless being controlled properly, could lead to a real trouble for the village livelihoods. Livelihood outcomes were evaluated through 26 quantitative attitudinal statements drawn from the literature and asked via household questionnaire. Questions were categorized under 4 main sustainability aspects namely economic (8 questions), social (8 questions), environmental (5 questions) and institutional aspects (4 questions) with one question asking about overall satisfaction with rural tourism development. Responses were measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). ConclusionTo sum up, the research illustrates the need for adopting a newer holistic and systematic approach like sustainable livelihood approach toward evaluation of the role of tourism in overall rural development, allowing to address issues and impacts like assets, other activities, institutional arrangement, vulnerability contexts which usually remain unaccounted in existing traditional tourist's assessment literature. Findings from the case study indicate, despite pretty good number of tourism visiting the village during the year, due to limited tourist facilities and service businesses and institutions and lack of a systematic planning and policy making to optimum exploitation of rural tourism potentials and local participation, tourism in Baraghan village benefits only a small group of people by providing a market for some local products, and has made a limited and small contribution to rural sustainable livelihoods and development, especially to poor population not having access to capital for initiating a business. Non-community-based approach and not having been accounting rural tourism setting and market, improper existing laws and regulations and lack of an integrated marketing plan and spatial zoning are among other reasons for Baraghan's tourism's inefficiency. Nonetheless, based on the residents’ overall approval of tourism development in the village, through appropriate tourism planning and policy-making in agreement with local situation, proper implementation of policies, and creating more economic and non-economic linkages between tourism and community, it is possible to improve the role that tourism plays in rural economic diversification being complementary to other livelihood activities and enhancing rural sustainable development and natural-cultural conservation.

Nowadays, rural sustainability is one of the main issues of sustainable development programs in developing countries such as Iran. Of course not only it is useful to know rural sustainability criteria, but it is also more important to evaluate and prioritize them. Thus, based on a holistic view, this study carried out to categorize rural sustainability criteria more detailed than existent literature and then to prioritize the supposed criteria using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). MethodologyThe process of any development project is a communication process, because during this process, some development agents transfer different programs/technologies to customers via some communication channels. Today, the efficiency of such one way communication model is on question, so other alternative two way and interactive models are introduced. However the sub systems of new communication models are different from each other and also from past models, but three major subsystems are common between all of them. These subsystems are Production, Transfer and Implementation of new technologies. Also, with regard to communicative nature of development projects, it is necessary to introduce a comprehensive communication model to identify major components or sub systems of communication process. A lot of specialists have introduced communication theories and models. In this study, rural sustainability attributes were considered based on the basic Rogers and Shoemaker's communication model including "source", "message", "channel", "receiver" and "feedback. According to this view, sustainability elements included: Development organizations as sources, Sustainable programs (socio-cultural, economic-technical, and environmental) as messages, Communication media as channels, Customers (farmers) as receivers and Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of development programs as feedback subsystems. Therefore, a rural development as a communication process will be more sustainable if there is more: organizational sustainability, sustainable programs, and effective communication channels, focus on real costumers, and appropriate monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system. Sustainability criteria (attributes) for each one of the above elements (aspects) were determined in 2 stages. In stage 1, attributes were obtained from literature review and analytic research. The results of the primary (analytic) study showed that attribute such as decentralization, investment on sustainable activities, more attention to rural youth and women via getting their participation or investment on their special businesses; using two- way interactive methods of training; biodiversity, minimizing the consumption of un- renewable energy sources, minimizing using pastures and natural resources, decreasing soil erosion; increasing the rate of active population, decreasing the rate of rural- urban migration, income improvement, health, nutrition, housing, employment, availability of recreational opportunities are some main sustainability attributes in different aspects. In stage 2, a survey method was used in Dena County of the K&B province to determine the most problematic criteria for study area. For this purpose, a questionnaire including attributes obtained from the first stage was designed with close-ended statements and Likert-type scale answers. The face validity of questionnaire was verified by five subject matter specialists. FindingsA pilot study with 30 samples out of research sample was conducted. The reliability coefficient between 0.72 - 0.86 was calculated using Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient. Using stratified random sampling, 250 farmers were selected for this stage of the study. The respondents were asked to assess problematic rural sustainability attributes in the region. Based on the mean score and variance, rural sustainability attributes were prioritized for the region. Finally, AHP was used to identify ultimate priority of the selected criteria. The first stage of AHP is the development of decision tree. Decision tree is a structure that shows the relations between ultimate goal and level(s) of attributes. The second stage is Pair- wise comparison of attributes. Decision maker(s) judge(s) about the relative importance of attributes with respect to ultimate goal. They compare and weigh attributes using a bipolar scale from 1 to 9. AHP can be used either to prioritize alternatives and to select optimum one, or to prioritize criteria (attributes). Of course, no alternatives were considered in this study, because the aim of the study was to prioritize just criteria (attributes). The results of AHP showed that "reducing corruption" and "central monitoring" are the main criteria of organizational sustainability, also "youth employment increase" should be considered as the main social sustainability criteria. About environmental sustainability, "proper time of spraying" and "integrated management of plant's pests and diseases" are more important. Analysis of the results also showed that other rural sustainability aspects i.e. using proper communication media, selecting real customers and effective evaluation- feedback system are generally poor in the study area and should also be considered seriously in rural sustainability programs. ConclusionBased on the above mentioned results, it seems that a real refocusing of the programs such as research and extension activities should be followed in the study area especially in the context of the rural sustainability aspects and criteria. More detailed results are presented in the body of the paper.

Today exploiting the participation and the abilities of local people, particularly rural population, toward rural development has been considered as one of the effective strategies toward sustainable and comprehensive development of rural areas. The most important tool to achieve this goal is establishing NGOs based on the needs as well as abilities of different groups living in the villages, in diverse and essential issues of indigenous and local environment, in order to perform rural developmental programs. These organizations, in economic and social Fields – due to avoid a complex public sector bureaucracy and profit making of private sector - made it possible to in such areas as fighting poverty and hunger, environmental protection, forestry, increase awareness General welfare, health, community and family, according to Women and Children, redacting social damages and act Successful than the private and public sectors. Villages in the contemporary developments and threats facing widespread, and therefore ensure continuity of rural life and survival requires solutions and new methods to deal with problems that are innovative, invent, create products, processes and techniques depend on is large. For this purpose, managers must take on roles that are peripheral to suit changing conditions. Thus, rural development compared with the last link with the concept of entrepreneurship has wider.In recent years, the Islamic Councils and Rural Workers have been defined as the new managerial bodies in villages. As local people-centered managerial entities that are direct responsible bodies in villages, Rural Workers and Islamic Councils can make policies, manage and implement various educational programs, help the development of necessary infrastructures, attract financial resources, and play a major role in the development of rural entrepreneurship, paving the way for the development of rural entrepreneurship. Essentially, the two factors of entrepreneurship are determined as opportunity and desire to become entrepreneurs. The main factors driving opportunities include: internal entrepreneurial abilities, attempting to investment, market entry and general macroeconomic environment is. Entrepreneurship development is influenced by different factors. These factors can generally be divided into two groups of: (a) Individual factors, and (b) the environmental ones.This study investigated the role and practice of Islamic Councils and Rural Workers in gaining the local people participation and the development of entrepreneurship in the region’s rural areas.MethodologyThe type of this study is practical and its method is surveying. Collecting the data and information has done through documentary and field research methods and the data collection tools were questionnaires as well as interviews. Data have been analyzed using SPSS software and descriptive-analytical informations. The population of studied area includes villagers, entrepreneurs, officials, local experts and commentators in villages of Bahabad. Based on the Cochran formula, a sample size has been selected, consisting 143 rural people, 45 officials, and 30 entrepreneurs. The study area boundaries include parts of villages in Yazd Province, Bhabad and Bafq city and pool research in the years 1387 and 1388 was conducted. Results of research indicate that Rural Workers and the Islamic Councils had been relatively successful in the development of rural entrepreneurship; and local people believe that entrepreneurs, officials, experts and local commentators, Islamic council and Rural Workers have properly provided the necessary fields for the development of entrepreneurship in rural areas such as entrepreneurial infrastructures, entrepreneurial attitude and behavior, attracting financial and economic resources, and cultural and social factors. FindingAccording to the above mentioned factors, the practices of Rural Workers and councils have been acceptable and led to the development of rural entrepreneurship. The policy of developing people participation in developmental programs can play an important role in the development of entrepreneurship. Due to the contexts and features that are suitably available in the rural environment, the possibility of forming NGOs and organizing them in different contexts is completely provided. Organizations and nongovernmental organizations as institutions that represent different classes of people in the rural section are very effective tools for the development of entrepreneurship policies and accordingly can respond unmet civil rights, needs, demands and expectations of various classes of society by providing the ground for innovation and entrepreneurship in different areas. They can also increase the transparency, reduce the bureaucracy corruption, facilitate downsizing, simplify regulations, and ultimately increase the efficiency and effectiveness of state management in rural development. Restore, improve or create such local people-centered organizations (in the villages and generally at country’s level) actually means democracy, assignment of affairs to the people, decrease of government’s costs and responsibilities towards the rural management and also recruitment of public contributions in rural areas’ construction and developmental activities. This ultimately could lead to development of infrastructures, conditions and characteristics of rural entrepreneurship.

Natural hazards as recurring phenomenon have always existed in human life and will in the future, too. Nowadays Natural hazards occur throughout the world, but their impacts have been increasing and are generally much greater in developing countries than in developed ones. Earthquake is a kind of natural hazard that has the most damages for humankind. Earthquakes pose inevitable risks to everyone who lives on this planet. It is known that approximately 20% of the world’s populations live in seismically active zones. Furthermore, 90% of that population will be at risk in developing countries. Among the developing countries, because of the environmental structure, Iran is very vulnerable to natural hazards. In a brief look at the map of the earthquakes in Iran, we considered that most populated (rural and urban settlements) are located in the Zagros and Alborz piedmonts, which in terms of the threat from Earthquake disasters have relatively high vulnerability. Approximately, 32% of the Iran areas, 70% of population, and 67% of gross domestic production (GDP) in these regions are exposed to high risk of earthquake. MethodologyAlthough In recent years Experts and planners used many approaches for mitigation of Earthquake consequences, the increasing severity of disasters and their human and economic costs, illustrated the importance of new approaches such as earthquake risk management for mitigation of Earthquake Vulnerability. Earthquake risk management is to make plans and apply those for reducing human losses and protect properties from earthquake hazards. One of the most important characteristics of earthquake risk management approach is providing the framework for reducing the vulnerability to earthquake hazards and mitigating its impacts in settlements. Survey and attention to all of the key factors that are most important in earthquake risk mitigation such as education, awareness, knowledge, skill, institutional capability and environmental capacity are of the most important characteristics of earthquake risk management approach. Earthquake risk management approach provide the framework for reducing the vulnerability to earthquake hazards and mitigating of its impacts in all settlements (urban and rural). So because rural residence are more vulnerable compared to urban areas in particular against natural hazards and earthquake risk, using earthquake risk management framework as a new approach to natural hazard management has become more critical.FindingsResearchers using qualitative and quantitative methods have attempted to clarify the state the most important factors of earthquake risk management, such as education, awareness, knowledge, skill, institutional capability & resilience between rural people of Qazvin Township. In this study 29 villages of Qazvin Township is selected as sample. Results of field studies as well as statistical analysis found that all of the key factors of risk management (education, awareness, knowledge, skill, institutional capability & resilience) that are Influenced by factors such as low awareness of the residents of skills to deal with earthquake risk, living in inappropriate situations, distance from major cities, lack of educational preparation classes and environmental disaster (earthquake), low literacy of, residents low-quality of housing and infrastructure, The least attention of authorities and organizations related to earthquake risk management and soon are in the low level or at the bottom. In order to decrease the consequences of earthquakes among the rural settlement, empowerment of education, awareness, knowledge, skill, and institutional capability is necessary. In other words in order to reduce vulnerability of rural settlements in Qazvin Township it is suggested increase awareness (special location) increase the skills (technical, communication and interactivity, and rehabilitation), knowledge (formal and informal), participation (Before, during and after) earthquake, institutional capacity (institutional structure, institutional function and institutional relations), environmental bearing capacity (improve the quality of housing, improve infrastructure, improve access, the construction of buildings and increase aid and so on. ConclusionIt should be noted that earthquake risk is a fact. and reduction of earthquake risk in all settlements, especially rural areas need attention and effort. So to reduce the vulnerability of rural areas the earthquake, the use of earthquake risk management framework is proposed and its application in earthquake risk management in all stages (data collection and identification of earthquake risk, describing the risk, qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, estimating the damage Quality, risk acceptance and planning to reduce injuries) in the whole process (before, during and after) the earthquake is necessary. Of course, for application or operational risk management process, considering environmental, social - cultural, economic and physical structures of rural communities is the key.

Sustainability assessment has become an important tool to aid in the shift towards sustainability. However, this is a new and evolving concept and there are very few examples of effective sustainability assessment processes implemented throughout in the world. The concept of sustainable development can be a state of balance between different aspects of development that aims to dispel the needs and improving quality of life of humans. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development to take advantage appropriate resources and create an equal and balanced relationship between human society and nature, purpose program planners and managers of development and rural development is particularly. With the change of development paradigm from traditional and classic approaches to new paradigm of sustainable development, other approaches such as participatory approach, empowerment, capacity building and evaluation literature of planning and management have also changed and compass to strategic planning and management. Based on this, nowadays, to implement the sustainable development paradigm, need to new pattern of planning, until with comprehensive and providential attitude, can responded to developmental needs in different levels of planning. During this time, a number of studies have been undertaken to assess strategic and co-ordinate action for sustainable development (SD). The introduction of sustainable development to government or the private sector raises difficult management challenges, because the concept is multi-faceted and broadly-defined. These challenges, however, are not unique. Governments and corporations have faced them before when they have integrated new values into their policies and organizations (e.g., gender equity, occupational health and safety, results-based management). The success of this integration is typically a function of process aspects such as leadership, planning, implementation, and monitoring and review. The latter represent some of the fundamental tenets of strategic management.MethodologyIt is possible when forming a framework to select appropriate indicators and represent sustainable development and efficient tool to analyze, measure and evaluate them. Because the framework of appropriate and efficient tool to evaluate and measure the sustainability, are credibility findings that promote scientific research and increase the reliability of space-making decisions managers and policy makers. Accordingly, is applied since the model and techniques several different levels to assess and evaluate sustainable development, but have not achieved a good framework for sustainability evaluation, especially in rural areas. Therefore the key objective of this paper is to identify several evaluation methods of sustainability and with this comprehensive approach the choice to assess the sustainability evaluation. Therefore, theoretical literature was considered an integrated approach for assessment and evaluation of the sub- based on multi criteria techniques to study TOPSIS- FUZZY. More was selected to study village of Komijan county as case study, based on approach measures form Cochran sample of 430 households questionnaire were collected data.Results & DiscussionThe main objective of this paper is to combine and integrate environmental, economic and social impact assessment procedures in order to support decision- making in the context of rural sustainable development in the Komijan County. Calculation results showed grace villages respectively are entitled Fazlabad Aliabad score 0/696 and 0/666 of high and stable levels of rural Chalmyan and Ksrasf level less stable than other settlements. Thus Chalmyan and Ksrasf have a low degree of sustainability in the other rural Points area and this model could well express the sustainability gradation among rural of this region. So the result of study and observation are adopted with current objectivity in rural settlement.ConclusionThe conclusion of this combination of literature and field studies is that if SDIs are to contribute substantially to the increased sustainability of rural systems, they must be applied in planning and decision making. Sound accounting and reporting practices are prerequisites for other SDI applications. In the fields of accounting and reporting, the rural studied can learn from the world experience and its implementation of tools such as EMS and sustainability reporting, a process that has already started. Business, on the other hand, broadly speaking and judging from the literature studied, could most likely increase its sustainability performance by learning from the comparatively deep understanding of environmental issues, including cause-effect relationships. For rural areas of significant characteristics with particular problems and situations, suitable and accordant rural development measures have to be prepared and implemented. Still, a good understanding of rural sustainable issues among practitioners, will not lead to any practical changes as long as this understanding does not reach decision makers in rural area, which again points to the importance of SDA in planning and decision making.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is now one of the criteria for measuring the economic and industrial development, in a way that it has had significant effects on different aspects of socio-cultural, economic and political life of people and human communities. In this study, the authors have tried to investigate the economic, social and physical effects of ICT centers on rural development in Gorgan as a leading zone in construction of rural ICT centers in Iran. For this purpose, at first step, they assessed the level of rural population access to ICT and the way they could benefit from it. Then the effects of ICT centers on rural development were examined in two main groups of villages: those which had ICT centers, and those which lacked them. MethodologyThis study was carried out using the descriptive-analytical method. Some parts of the data were collected through field study and questionnaires and interviews. Other parts of the data, for example, data needed for theoretical and conceptual framework, documents and census were collected through library research. To estimate the number of participants, Cochrane sampling formula was used with a confidence level of 70% and error level of 55 %. The sampling was carried out in simple random method. In this study three groups were questioned or interviewed: 1. the inhabitants of the villages (husbandmen) 2. Heads of self-reliant rural management (Dehyari) and members of Islamic council of the villages; 3.The experts and specialist employed in the ICT centers of the Golestan province and Gorgan County.To compare some of the parameters of the villages, in this study they were divided into two groups:1) Villages in which ICT has proven successful. There were a total number of 67 villages in which ICT was successful; considering the probability coefficient of 20 percent and population groups, 14 villages were selected randomly. According to Cochrane sampling, the sample size tuned out to be 276 participants (husbandmen which were chosen in simple random order and questioned).2) Villages lacking ICT centers. Considering the probability coefficient of 20 percent and population groups, 6 villages were selected randomly. According to Cochrane sampling, the sample size tuned out to be 60 participants (husbandmen) which were chosen in simple random order and questioned.Having collected and processed the data in ArcGis, SPSS etc. the authors turned to data analysis and exploitation. The following hypotheses were proposed to account for the study questions: It seems that rural ICT centers increase rural participation, hygiene, welfare, and decrease migration, and also decreasing the information gap between rural and urban areas. It seems that rural ICT centers pave the way for rural development, increasing products, improvement of marketing for the rural product and rise in employment rate in rural areas. It seems that rural ICT centers have changed the patterns of housing, rural communication and way of life.Results and DiscussionEfficiency coefficient of ICT in economic, social and physical aspects of Gorgan villages in two groups of having and lacking ICT collected in questionnaires shows that the average of the economic aspect of 4.44, average social aspect of 4.87 and average physical aspect of 4.43. These indexes are well indicating that ICT has had significant and positive effects on villagers’ way of life. While in villages lacking ICT, in view of the average villagers, the average of the economic aspect was 2.42, average social aspect was 2.28 and average physical aspect was 2.33, which shows the significant effects of ICT centers in rural development. In villages having ICT centers, in all the variables, weight mean was higher than 4 and close to 5, which indicates that villages having ICT had favorable conditions in the variables (of participation, level of hygiene, migration, information gap, rural development, product increase, marketing, employment rate, housing pattern, the way of life and communication) which all prove the positive effects of ICT in the villages. While in the villages lacking ICT centers, all the variables had an average between 2 and 3, which shows that villages without ICT were in poor conditions in the variables examined.Conclusion and RemarksInformation and communication technology have created new opportunities for different communities. The sooner, these opportunities are created, the faster the communities can accelerate structural progress and cover up imperfections and deficiencies. In the Gorgan County in Iran, ICT has significantly progressed. At the end, the authors tested the hypothesis of the study, and it turned out that:1. In villages having ICT, the weight median of (4.87) ICT effect on the social aspects shows that this parameter had considerable effects on rural development in the villages of the study area; while in the villages lacking ICT, the villagers’ view does not confirm its effect on the social aspects of their life. As a result, the author's first hypothesis suggesting that “rural ICT centers increase the rural participation and hygiene and decrease migration and knowledge gap between rural and urban areas”, has been confirmed.2. In the villages having rural ICT centers, the weight median of ICT effect (4.44) on the economic aspects confirms the effect of this parameter on rural development, while in villages lacking ICT, the villagers’ view does not confirm its effect on the economic aspects of villagers’ life. Therefore, the author's second hypothesis suggesting that “ICT centers pave the way for rural development, increase in products, improvement of marketing for the rural product and rise in employment rate in rural areas” has been confirmed.3. In the villages having rural ICT centers, the weight median of ICT effect (4.43) on the physical aspects confirms the effect of this parameter on rural development, while in villages lacking ICT, the villagers’ view does not confirm its effect on the physical aspects of villagers’ life. Therefore, the author's third hypothesis suggesting that “rural ICT centers has changed the patterns of housing, rural communication and way of life” has been confirmed.Considering the study results, the authors propose that operational procedures such as public administrative services be provided in rural ICT centers which would facilitate the communication between local rural managers and administrative organizations through the facilities provided in rural ICT centers.