农村(nóng cūn) - countryside in Mandarin

农村 (nóngcūn) is the countryside, specifically the rural, farmed landscape rather than wilderness. 农 (nóng) means "agriculture, farming" and 村 (cūn) means "village", so the word points at farmland and the villages scattered across it, together.

It is almost always used in contrast with 城市 (chéngshì), "city", and that contrast, 农村 versus 城市, is one of the most common set pairings in discussions of modern China: 从农村到城市 (cóng nóngcūn dào chéngshì), "from the countryside to the city", describes the huge internal migration of the last few decades.

Do not confuse it with 乡下 (xiāngxià), a more colloquial, slightly old-fashioned word for "the country, out in the sticks", or with 农场 (nóngchǎng), "a farm" as a single working property rather than the wider rural area.