The spatial distribution regulations and reconstruction methods of rural settlements in provincial border areas are significant for sustainable development in rural areas but have yet to receive much attention. Suitability evaluation, an essential method for rural settlement spatial reconstruction, has a particular subjectivity in indicator assignment and weight setting. Based on kernel density estimation, Geodetector and minimum cumulative resistance model, this study selected Wuqing District, a provincial border district of Tianjin, China, to address the above issues. The results revealed that rural settlements in Wuqing District face significant variations in spatial scale and density. Population size and arable land availability dominate as fundamental drivers, while boundary effects and transport conditions modulate the spatial clustering of settlements. The density of rural settlements varies in sub-regions with different distances to the provincial boundaries. The role of administrative boundaries may be a reconciling trade-off mechanism between two opposing effects. The suitability evaluation of rural settlements in Wuqing District indicates the practical necessity of rural settlement optimisation and reconstruction. This study brings new insights by explicitly focusing on provincial border areas and uncovering a boundary effect in rural settlement density, while achieving a data-driven weighting scheme.
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