Village renewal has been a broadly discussed problem in terms of changes observed in rural areas and development thereof. Despite its practical nature, village renewal has also been broadly studied by academics – research has been made, inter alia in Europe and the United States. Due to a regional character of these studies, different scientific approaches and aims, the meaning of “village renewal” was understood differently as well. The aims of the article are the following: to review foregoing ways of understanding the term in international literature, to present the evolution of the meaning of the term, to attempt to systematise it and to compare the mentioned interpretations with the definition of the term found in selected Polish literature. Therefore, the article is a literature review on the one hand and a theoretical analysis on the other hand. Systematic and narrative literature review methods have been applied. The analysis included more than 2000 scientific works available in key bibliographic databases and publishers’ online libraries. The literature review resulted in a development of a model of village renewal issues – in relation to village renewal dimensions, aims of the renewal pursued in each dimension and a paramount aim of the village renewal itself. Also, the article attempts to explain reasons behind the multitude of meanings of the term. Selected afterthoughts regarding the nature of the village renewal, based on the review conducted, have been presented in conclusion.