The spatial and temporal pattern of rural settlements is the basis for optimizing land use and rational planning of rural areas, which is conducive to understanding the internal mechanism of changes of rural settlements and promoting the construction of new rural areas and rural revitalization. Based on the data of land use types in the coastal areas of Zhejiang Province from 1980 to 2020, this paper analyzes the changes of the scale and spatial pattern of rural settlements in the coastal areas of Zhejiang Province in the past 40 years by using the methods of single land use dynamic attitude, land use activity, landscape pattern index, nuclear density, standard deviation ellipse and geographical detector. The results show that: (1) From 1980 to 2020, the area of rural settlements in coastal areas of Zhejiang continues to increase by nearly 81%, and the area transferred out is less than the area transferred in. The area transferred in is mainly cultivated land and forest land, and the activity fluctuates greatly. (2) From 1980 to 2020, the size of rural settlements showed a fluctuating growth trend, with a growth rate of 335.90%, and the patch morphology index showed a slight increase in complexity, showing a clustering trend. (3) Rural settlements are concentrated in Jiaxing City, Hangzhou City and other coastal plain areas, the degree of agglomeration gradually weakens from north to south, and the southeast direction is the expansion hotspot. (4) The analysis of geographical detectors showed that elevation and slope contributed the most to spatial distribution, while precipitation, distance from rivers and GDP density had a higher impact. Therefore, attention should be paid to the role of natural factors in rural planning. This study can provide important reference for rural planning and development, guide the rational distribution of rural construction and resource utilization, provide scientific basis for the government to formulate rural development policies, resource allocation and management, and promote the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]