In rural settlement planning, its spatial development framework should be constructed on the basis of the hierachial settlement system. However, up to now, there does not exist widely - accepted model on rural settlement hierachy. In this study the basic planning principles and directions on the modelling of the settlement hireachy in rural areas have been consolidated through theoretical study and situational analysis on planning environments. And also, a new yardstick on the grading of the middle - level centers between villages and rural towns has been tried to find out. The research resulted that the existance of periodical rural market might be used as a simple and innovative yardstick on the hierachial ordering of rural settlement system. Based on the above results, an alternative 4 - step model of rural settlement hierachy was proposed ; Rural Town(county hall sitted) -Market Center(having standard periodical market) - Village Center(having no market) - Village. Finally, because the conclusion has been made by very limited case studies and several previous works, there should need continuous studies and checks in future for full reasoning of the proposed model.