Abstract: By tracing back to the development of villages in Minhang district, this paper concludes that the characteristics of traditional villages and towns are the product of natural environment, industrial crops, history and culture, lifestyle and other factors, which are reflected in the spatial form including the facing south and water dwelling concept, as well as simple and practical aesthetic taste. And it eventually evolves into flexible and free village layout, four prism courtyard dwellings, multiple courtyard dwellings, commercial street dwellings and so on. These dwellings, which have evolved the local characteristics adapting to the local environment in Shanghai, influences the contemporary local dwellings, and is expected to provide support and guidance for the inheritance of traditional rural characteristics in the process of future rural revitalization.