Abstract:  The layout and utilization changes of rural residential areas are strongly connected with the socio-economic situations. Take Shanghai as an example, from the perspective of the function of production-living-ecological spaces, GIS spatial analysis, Entropy Weight method, and landscape ecology method were used in our study to determine the evolution of characteristics of rural residential areas in Shanghai. The results show that: (1) According to a functional evaluation of production-living-ecological spaces, Shanghai can be divided into four functional zones with particular endowment features. (2) spatial functions are the basis of the evolution of rural residential areas, under the influence of other socio-economic factors, it forms different evolution trend in different functional areas in 2005-2018. (3) As of 2018, the scale of rural residential areas in different zones is: Agricultural Production & Ecological Zone＞ Production Oriented Zone ＞Production-Living-Ecological Coordinated Zone; the shape regularity degree is: Production Oriented Zone ＞Production-Living-Ecological Coordinated Zone ＞ Agricultural Production & Ecological Zone; the distribution concentration degree is: Agricultural Production & Ecological Zone ＞ Production-Living-Ecological Coordinated Zone ＞ Production Oriented Zone. According to the results, combined with the requirements of “Urban master planning of Shanghai(2017-2035)”, the optimization strategies of rural residential area layout is proposed.  Our research is helpful to intuitively demonstrate the dynamic relationship between land use changes and socio-economic situations and promote the sustainable development of both rural and urban areas.