Abstract:[Purposes]The coupling and coordinated development pattern and mechanism of population-land-industry-finance system (PLIFS) is related to the sustainable development of rural areas, and also provides ideas for enhancing the endogenous development capacity of rural areas and innovating endogenous development paths. [Methods]It takes the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of Chongqing as the study area, selects typical years of 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020,constructs endogenous factor evaluation indexes from four dimensions of population, land, industry and finance, comprehensively measures the development level and coupling type of PLIFS. With the help of coupling coordination model, the coupling intensity, coordination level and spatio-temporal evolution pattern of endogenous factors are quantitatively revealed, and then the mechanism of endogenous factors coupling and coordination development is discussed. [Results]The results show that: in rural areas, the comprehensive development level of PLIFS is low, the majority of development types are at the medium level of population and industry, and the majority of land and finance are at the low level. The spatial pattern of coupling coordination is characterized by “high coupling and low coordination”, decreasing from southwest to northeast, and the spatial distribution is relatively scattered. There are three coupling synergy types of rural PLIFS: low coordination level-leading development of population and industry; medium coordination level-leading development of industry; high coordination level-leading development of finance and industry. Industry and finance play an important role in the process of rural coordinated development. The development level of the rural land subsystem in the study area changes relatively steadily, and rural development is mainly driven by the development of the population, industry, and financial subsystems. [Conclusions]Most of PLIFS in the reservoir area are at a medium low level. Rural labor, agricultural production efficiency and farmers' income are the main factors driving rural development. The development of the endogenous factors of PLIFS appears differentiation, and the trend of unbalanced development is gradually highlighted.