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Protection, development, and encouragement of investment in livestock activities is highly important in order to preserve genetic resources, increase production, create job security, and it is also good for entrepreneurship, especially in rural areas. This study tries to explore the role of small livestock units in the sustainable livelihood of rural families in the city of Aq Qala. In terms of objective, this is an applied study and in terms of nature, it is a descriptive-analytical study. Statistical population of this survey consists of families living in the rural areas of Aq Qala which are altogether 4073 families. By the use of Cochran's formula, 354 householders were selected as the sample size in order to fill up Ire questionnaires. In order to analyze the data, Freidman, Phi Cramer, Chi-square, Spearman, and Wilcoxon tests were used in the SPSS environment. The research results showed that according to Phi Cramer, Chi-Square, and Spearman tests, there is a 99% significant relationship between formation of small livestock units and personal features of individuals such as job, education, marital status, job-related skills, age, and income. Freidman, Chi-square, and Wilcoxon tests showed that there is a significant relationship between formation of small livestock units and improvement of livestock capitals (human, social, economic, physical, and natural). Also, Kruskal Wallis test showed significant differences between livelihood capitals of families that have small livestock units in the studied villages. Therefore, it is suggested that for maintenance and improvement of small livestock units, the government support them by providing cheap fodder for active farmers in this business so that they can be encouraged and the grounds can be laid for sustainability of rural economy and sustainability of population in the rural areas considering the unique features of these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]