Rural revitalization has become a national strategy, and the construction of rural living environment is the basic work and important content of rural revitalization, as well as a key area for achieving modern spatial governance. Based on the vast natural base of mountainous areas in China, how to integrate targeted mountainous rural spatial governance modes from the perspective of mountainous living environment science into the national task construction is a theoretical and practical issue of great significance to the times. Through analysis and summarization of the research literature on mountainous rural living environment in the past 20 years, this article summarizes the main fields, characteristics, and trends of relevant research. In general, in recent years, relevant research has greatly enriched the theory, model, method, and case of living environment, with the following basic characteristics and trends: (1) domestic and foreign research focuses on different and diverse scales; (2) domestic research on mountainous rural living environment emphasizes development, while foreign research emphasizes sustainability; (3) research on mountainous rural living environment and spatial governance is parallel. Overall, there is still a gap between the research results and the “systematic integration” advocated by living environment science, and it cannot fully meet the realistic national needs, manifested in the following aspects: (1) the logical connection between urban-rural spatial planning and living environment science is not close, and the theoretical basis of spatial planning is lacking; (2) the practical experience of mountainous rural planning and living environment science research lacks practical links, and the academic results of relevant practice and living environment research have not formed a joint force; (3) the practical mode and regulation of mountainous rural planning still lack the perspective of spatial governance, mostly following the traditional “blueprint” mode, and lack the perspective of mechanism, system, and rules of spatial governance; (4) there is a lack of regularity in revealing the particularity of mountainous living environment spatial governance. Driven by the national strategies of ecological civilization and rural revitalization, as well as the reform of the country’s territorial spatial planning system, the theoretical and practical innovation of urban and rural planning discipline urgently needs the support of basic theories and technical methods. Through reviewing research literature over the past 20 years, it is found that there is still a gap in integrating the “five systems” of human settlement environment science, and academic discussions on spatial governance models are parallel to research on human settlement environment. The development of theoretical and practical urban and rural spatial planning lacks theoretical support and practical exploration of institutional and mechanistic perspectives under the “spatial governance” framework. Based on the national task of rural revitalization and the internal requirements of mountainous human settlement environment science, this article explores the spatial governance model of human settlement environment zoning based on villages, and designs the basic content and optimization framework of mountainous village spatial governance, in order to provide decision-making ideas for the revitalization of rural areas and the construction of human settlement environment in western mountainous areas. Starting from the basic theory of human settlement environment science, this article extends the zoning governance model of mountainous rural human settlement environment, which not only connects with the solid theoretical foundation of human settlement environment science, but also provides targeted solutions for the modernization of territorial spatial governance, and has important theoretical and practical guidance value for enhancing the adaptability and theoretical solidity of urban and rural planning discipline. Due to the different research perspectives, there are differences in the cognitive scope of rural space. This study mainly focuses on the spatial organization perspective of mountainous rural areas, but some scholars have proposed that rural space also includes non-material spaces such as material space, social space, and cultural space, as well as ownership space, and further exploration of rural space governance is needed.