Abstract: It is helpful to protect high-quality farmland and permanent basic farmland by accurately identifying the influencing factors and spatial distribution characteristic at the urban-rural fringe. In this paper, we take Shanghai Pudong New Area as a typical example of urban-rural fringe. Based on the difference between the conversion probability and the conversion rate on patch scale, a hurdle model is constructed to identify the key influencing factors of farmland conversion. Furthermore, based on the estimation results of the hurdle model, we improved the risk assessment model to evaluate the risk of farmland conversion, and analyzed the possible spatial distribution of farmland conversion by hot spot analysis. The results show that: (1) The farmland conversion process in Pudong New Area is not complete, the average conversion rate is about 19% on patch scale, and there is obvious spatial distribution characteristics for these converted plots, such as the form of block or strip. (2) The farmland conversion process is very complicated, only the key influencing factors have significant dual impacts on it, including the nearest distance between the plots and water source, rural road, town, whether the plots in basic farmland conservation area or within urban development boundary or not. (3) According to the results of risk assessment and hot spot analysis, the farmland is divided into four types: risk area, fragile area, sensitive area and safety area. Based on the division results showed above, about 2 426.86 hm2 farmland are at risk of large scale conversion, about 5 449.7 and 3 793 hm2 farmland are located in fragile area and sensitive area, about 15 253.5 hm2 farmland are left in agricultural production safety area with low farmland conversion probability, which could be used as the permanent basic farmland of the city for key construction. The study attempts to identify possible farmland conversion plots and their spatial distribution in Pudong New Area, hoping to provide reference for local governments to strengthen farmland protection and agricultural infrastructure investment.