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A list of “ruralist” Ph.D.s defended in French universities was compiled, mostly through queries on the thèses.fr online database. The study covers the years 2000-2022, and 1143 Ph.D.s were collected. The resulting corpus was surveyed with reference to the disciplinary field of the Ph.D.s, the type of space they studied, the time period covered, and the extent to which they were entirely, or only partially, focused on rural areas. A statistical study of the corpus brought to light both continuities which had already been observed when HSR was launched, and new elements which have become progressively more salient, especially the trend towards the inclusion of the rural dimensions in studies belonging to very diverse disciplinary fields.