Abstract: Promoting the narrowing of urban-rural income gap is an important part of achieving high-quality development. Using the methods of Coefficient of Variation, Markov chain and spatial analysis, this paper discusses the temporal and spatial evolution law of urban-rural income and its gap in the Yangtze River Delta from 2000 to 2018, and uses the spatial econometric method to explore the driving factors of the evolution of urban-rural income gap. The results show that: (1) the overall income gap between urban and rural areas increases first and then decreases, but the urban income is higher than that in rural areas, the rural income gap is higher than that in urban areas, and the core edge pattern of urban and rural income has strong stability（2) The urban-rural income gap between different cities presents a significant core edge pattern. The decline of high-value areas and the expansion of low-value areas show that the urban-rural income gap has narrowed as a whole; The differences in the evolution of urban and rural income in different cities show that the policies to narrow the urban-rural income gap in the future should be adapted to local conditions（3) Economic development, population mobility, government influence and opening to the outside world are all important factors affecting the urban-rural income gap. The differences of influencing factors in different periods show that relevant policies should be made according to time. In addition, the increased spatial spillover effect brought about by the deepening of integration indicates that the interaction between cities should be strengthened when formulating relevant policies.
