This work is devoted to the rural areas’ integrated development issues. The advantages of a systematic approach for the sustainable development paradigm main policies’ goals implementation and the possibility of using geoinformation technologies as a tool for multidimensional analysis of rural areas are considered. A two-stage methodology for monitoring the rural settlements development, which makes it possible to assess the territory at the federal and local levels by a set of indicators reflecting the main aspects of socio-economic processes, is proposed. Special attention is paid to assessing the quality of the environment by three groups of factors that take into account environmental comfort, movement comfort and other indicators characterizing the comfort of living from the point of view of the territorial residents’ individual needs.