Abstract: In China, the construction of characteristic towns is a hot issue nowadays. Take Britain as an example, through research on the development characteristics of small towns in the process of urbanization, we have found that in the “population concentration” period, industrialization laid the economic and industrial foundation for the development of small towns; in the “population decentralization” period, the government’s macro-control leads small towns to sustainable development. It shows that the characteristics of successful British “characteristic towns” are closely related to their accumulation in the historical progress, it gives us some inspirations to the booming construction of characteristic towns in China.