Abstract:On the vast land of China there are still some ancient Villages scattered, which were formed under some specific historical situations.Due to the limitations such as geographical and transport factors,these ancient villages have been little affected by the construction boom outside,keeping the original shape,architectural style and even the plain and simple customs until now.During the course of location selection and village formation, the traditional culture of the villagers has been embodied into the substantial system of the village and has become the important part of the village culture.The study on the ancient village-the prototype of city inhabitation-will contribute to understanding the trace of city development,that is,the concept of city planning and designing transforms from the functionalism to humanism approach.It is endowed with further cultural connotation promoting the continuous development of the city. In this paper, the external form of traditional culture in the ancient villages were inquired into from four aspects:the thought of "gendu"(farming and study) culture, the idea of village defense,the concept of "lishui" culture and the notion of "fengshui" culture.