Integrated development in urban and rural areas has led to a new form of urban–rural interdependence, which promotes rural territorial functional evolution and land use changes. Rural land use transition, showing the synchronous development between cities and villages, is an important window through which to observe integrated development in urban and rural areas. We focus on uncovering the association between rural land use transition and urban–rural integration development (URID), put forward a dynamic relationship assumption between rural land use transformation and URID stages based on the transmission mechanism of urban–rural linkages, and undertake empirical analysis using the panel regression model with the data of county-level administrative units in Shandong Province, China. The results show that rural land use transition has maintained a close association with URID, and that the changes in cultivated land, forest land, and surface-water area are highly related to URID. There are different leading urban–rural linkages in rural areas around big-sized cities, mid-sized cities, and small-sized cities, which determine whether rural areas are in different URID stages of high, medium, or low levels. Further, rural areas can take different actions to promote URID at different stages through strengthening or introducing urban–rural linkages driven by economies of scale and deepening urbanization. This provides a reference for developing countries to formulate rural land use policies on achieving the goal of URID.
Rural land use transition of mountainous areas and policy implications for land consolidation in China