How does land consolidation affect rural development transformation?

China's rural territory is entering a critical stage of transformation and development. Promoting rural development and transformation is an important path to achieve rural vitalization, and land consolidation is expected to become the starting point to boost rural transformation. To clarify the internal relationship between land consolidation and rural development transformation is an important scientific proposition. This paper constructs a theoretical framework of rural land consolidation (RLC) affecting rural development transformation (RDT), and analyzes the historical evolution process and characteristics of RLC and rural development in China. Based on government interviews and household surveys, this paper analyzes the impact of RLC on RDT under different geographic types and different consolidation models from a multi-subject perspective, and empirically tests the effects using the econometric model. China's rural land consolidation has also gradually transformed to multi-type and multi-functional comprehensive consolidation. The results show that there are many explicit and implicit mechanisms of the influence of RLC on RDT in China, such as mechanism of promotion of industrial development, mechanism of integration of development factors, mechanism of urbanization and mechanism of urban-rural interaction. And the results of different modes of RLC impact on RDT are different. Farmers have a high degree of support and satisfaction with RLC since RLC has improved their production and living conditions as well as household and village income. Besides, the effects of various types of RLC on RDT are positive. The authors argue that constructing human-land early warning mechanisms, optimizing the layout and performance evaluation of RLC and promoting multi-type development and multisystem coordination of RLC can elevate the effect of RLC on RDT. This paper provides reference for scientific decision-making of RDT from the perspective of RLC.