Rural space, as an important fulcrum for coordinating the urban-rural development pattern in a region, is also the core carrier for activating the endogenous sustainability of rural areas. In recent years, the gradual deviation in rural development within metropolitan areas has highlighted the conflict between spatial development and resource constraints. In response to this issue, from a functional perspective, this study selects the Xi’an metropolitan area as an empirical research object. A suitability evaluation model for rural space utilization in the Xi’an metropolitan area is constructed, and the equal-weight linear weighting method is employed to assess the suitability levels of rural ecological, production, and living spaces in the Xi’an metropolitan area. Furthermore, the confusion matrix model and Kappa coefficient are utilized to examine the consistency and spatial differentiation characteristics of these evaluations. The results indicate that: ① The single dominant functional advantage areas in the Xi’an metropolitan area are concentrated in mountainous regions, forested areas, water systems, and suburban zones, exhibiting zonal and scattered distribution patterns; ②The complex functional distribution areas in the Xi’an metropolitan area are extensive, particularly those involving production-life composite functions, which display planar or zonal distribution characteristics; ③ The rural space in the Xi’an metropolitan area exhibits significant differentiation, especially evident in the northern and southern mountainous regions, transitioning from ecologically-led functional advantage areas and ecologically productive compound function zones to living spaces. This research enriches the theoretical framework of rural spatial suitability evaluation in metropolitan areas to some extent and provides valuable theoretical and practical references for enhancing the comprehensive efficiency of regional rural land use.

The metropolitan area is an advanced form of regional spatial pattern evolution, and since the daily life of residents has entered the era of regional living characterized by cross-domain living, the true pursuit of spatial planning research is to shape high-quality living spaces. Through retracing the research history of living space, the paper summarized the research progress and trend of living space, clarified the multi-objective, multi-level and multi-scale spatial characteristics and construction foundation of regional living space based on the spatial organization of the metropolitan area, and put forward a theoretical analysis framework of regional living system, which is composed of the transformation and reconstruction of the whole region of life, the organization and connection under the logic of behavior, the linkage and integration of multi-level nesting, and the dynamic monitoring and optimization of longevity, and explored the core issues and trend directions of regional living space research into furtherly. By discussing the research process and theoretical analysis framework of regional living space, the study attempts to establish a high-quality development strategies and planning support for the metropolitan area with regional life integration planning as the core, which is of great significance and function for the construction of a better life for the people.