Purpose Rural resilience plays an important role in maintaining rural stability and people's living standards in the face of risks and unexpected challenges. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the concept and mechanism of rural resilience and discuss how rural resilience is measured and to propose ways to improve rural resilience. Design/methodology/approach Literature review of the theoretical interpretations and empirical studies of rural resilience are conducted in the paper. Findings Resilience acts in the process as rural communities respond to risks and disturbances so as to maintain system stability and minimize the loss. Rural resilience consists of the capacity of resistance, adaptation and transformation. Promoting multifunctional transformation, exercising bottom-up planning and enhancing social capital are proposed to improve rural resilience. Originality/value The study of the paper makes comprehensive review of rural resilience in the context of rural interaction with the changing external environment. The study contributes to the understanding of rural evolution and helps to initiate feasible ways to achieve rural revival.