The relationship between rural labor transfer and cultivated land use has always been a hot topic in academic field and government management. Here, by using the large‐scale survey data of 1868 farmers from 37 villages in Jianghan Plain and the low‐hill areas in southeastern Hubei province, we investigated the relationship between rural labor force transfer and decision making in cultivated land use from the perspective of terrain heterogeneity. The findings indicate that under different terrain conditions, there are significant differences in the decision making of farmers concerning cultivated land use, leading to different land use efficiencies in different areas. Specifically, rural labor force transfer enhances land use efficiency in plain areas; however, it does not affect that in the low‐hill areas. In addition, we found that in the plain areas, improving the quality of rural household labor can increase the cultivated land use efficiency, while in low‐hill areas, enhancement of geographical accessibility is the key to improving land use efficiency.

The rapid urbanization of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration has led to the convergence of population, land and capital. The coordination between land development intensity and urban resilience has become a key issue in the post-urbanization period. From the perspective of regional overall and coordinated development, we constructed an evaluation index system of land development intensity and urban resilience. Then, the comprehensive evaluation model, coupling coordination degree model and panel Tobit regression model were adopted to systematically study the temporal and spatial differentiation of and influencing factors on the coupling coordination degree between land development intensity and urban resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration from 2009 to 2019. The results show that from 2009 to 2019, the land development intensity exhibited a slow and fluctuating increase, while the urban resilience displayed continuous growth, and the level of land development intensity generally lagged behind that of urban resilience. From 2009 to 2019, the average coupling coordination degree between land development intensity and urban resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration increased from 0.5177 to 0.6626, which generally changed from bare coordination to moderate coordination. In terms of spatial distribution, the coastal cities and cities along the Yangtze River were characterized by high coupling coordination degrees, which formed a “T” shape distribution pattern. In addition, the coupling coordination types showed certain spatio-temporal heterogeneity among cities. Finally, land economic benefit, green industrial development, scientific and technological innovation, social management and infrastructure all had significant impacts on the coupling and coordination between land development intensity and urban resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration.