Rural settlements bear such comprehensive functions as the production and living for rural population.To optimize the distribution of rural settlements is playing an important role in improving rural production and living standard,easing the contradiction of land supply and demand,improving land utilizaiton and coordinating rural and urban development.Supported by MAPGIS,this paper caculates and analyzes the layout structures,characteristics and problems of rural settlements in Xinzhou District and also uses principal component analysis to extract the main factors about the distribution of rural settlements and constructs niche-fitness model to divide Xinzhou District into layout priority area,appropriate layout area,general layout area and unfavorable layout area.On this basis,this paper proposes optimal layout scheme of rural residential areas in Xinzhou district so as to provide the guidances and suggestions for the optimization of rural residential areas.