The quantitative identification of rural land functions serves as a basis for rural land planning, coordinated spatial development, and control capacity improvement and is significant for rural ...transformation and sustainable development. This paper constructs an analysis framework to identify and evaluate “production-living-ecological” space (PLES) in rural areas of central and western China. On the Loess Plateau, which was taken as the study area, a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis was completed to determine framework indicators and their thresholds. Resource and environmental carrying capacity and land suitability were measured through GIS spatial analysis under different land functional orientations. This sought to recognize production space (PS), living space (LS), and ecological space (ES) in rural areas, reveal their distribution patterns on the Loess Plateau, and determine alternative areas for future land use. The results indicate that the PS and LS of the Loess Plateau rural land show a relatively low resource and environmental carrying capacity but vary significantly in different functional regions. The space distribution of PS and LS with higher carrying capacity shows obvious consistency. Although the Loess Plateau has vast sustainable land for development, the intensity of development should be carefully controlled. Additionally, significant regional differences remain in rural PLES, so reasonable future rural land planning should be formulated according to the PLES pattern. This study provides a scientific basis for promoting coordinated development of Loess Plateau rural areas and implementing a rural revitalization strategy. It is also a reference for identifying PLES and its coordinated spatial development in rural central and western China.
