For the first time，this study established a county-level digital rural index system which is more suitable for the reality of agriculture，rural areas and farmers from four aspects：rural digital infrastructure，rural economy digitalization，rural governance digitalization and rural life digitalization. Taking 1880 counties or county-level cities as basic units （excluding municipal districts or special zones），it collected national macro statistics，industry data and Internet big data，and empirically measured the county-level digital rural index in 2018. It is found that the construction of county-level digital villages in China is in the initial stage，and the top 100 counties that represent a higher level of development present a regional distribution pattern of “one strong and multiple”，and at least one county in nearly half of the provinces is shortlisted for the top 100 counties. There is little difference between the north and the south in the development of county-level digital villages，but there is a phenomenon of “rapid development in the east，second in the middle，and lagging behind in the northeast and west”. The development level of rural digital infrastructure is relatively high，while the digitalization of rural economy and governance is relatively slow. The regional differences of rural digital infrastructure index，rural economic digitization index and rural life digitization index are relatively small，but the regional differences of rural governance digitization are large. The gap between the development level of digital villages in poverty-stricken counties and non-poverty counties is smaller than the gap between them in rural per capita disposable income，and the digital infrastructure brings the opportunity of “changing lanes and overtaking” for the development of digital villages in poverty-stricken counties. Therefore，this study puts forward policy suggestions from the following aspects：perfecting the system and mechanism design，filling the shortcomings of county digital rural development，paying attention to regional balanced development，and increasing the policy inclination to relatively poor areas.