随着社会可持续发展的观点被各国普遍所接受，社区发展又成了中外学术界的一个热门课题。本文阐述了社区发展的历史背景、内涵、原则和模式，探讨了社区地理学在社区发展研究中的作用。希望有益于社区发展和社区地理学的发展。

The view of social sustainable devlopment has been accepted by every country in the world. Community development has been a problem with extensive concern for Chinese and foreign academic circles. This paper elaborates on the historical background of community development and its connotation, principles and moulds, probes into actions of community geography in researching community development.It is to be wished that this paper could advance community development and community geography development.