Abstract: This paper aims to track the changes in rural settlement land use in China with large-scale and long-term time series data, to analyze its influencing factors. Using provincial-level panel data from 1990 to 2015, this study investigates the evolution characteristics of rural residential areas at the national level. Variables are selected from three categories of factors: social, natural, and location, and the driving force model for the impact of rural residential land is constructed. The results indicate that: 1) The changes in rural residential land use at the national level are determined by five core driving variables: rural population, regional GDP, annual precipitation, altitude, and distance to rivers; 2) The impact of the five core variables on the changes in rural residential land use in China is as follows: rural population>annual precipitation>altitude>distance to rivers>regional GDP; 3) The rural population has the strongest impact in the southwest region, with regional GDP, altitude, and distance to rivers having the strongest impact in the northeast region, and annual precipitation having the strongest impact in East China.