Abstract: The development of non-agricultural industries and the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries are important ways of building rural areas with thriving businesses. The practical experience of economically advanced areas provides ideas for improving the policy system and accelerating local revitalization initiatives. Taking the Yangtze River Delta region as an example, this paper explores the development path and evolution direction of rural non-agricultural industries after the reform and opening up and analyses the rich practical implications. First, the reduction of policy intervention in the early stages of economic transition encouraged some of the economic factors to be reallocated within rural communities. Rural industrial models with local characteristics developed intensively during this period. Second, affected by macroeconomic changes after entering the market-oriented deepening stage, rural non-agricultural industries have formed diverse upgrading pathways as a result of the interaction between ‘path dependence’ and ‘path de-embedding’. Third, the strong spatial demand resulting from non-agricultural industries and the discrepancy between spatial supply and demand are becoming more apparent, promoting the evolution of rural space. It is expected that rural areas will have differentiated development prospects. Based on this premise, innovative and coordinated paths for multi-dimensional policies such as industry and land should be explored in rural transition.