The urban-rural equalized development(URED) as a definite measure and oper ing model is beneficial to gradually eliminating the dual-track structure of urban-rural dev opment, bridging the gap of urban-rural development, and creating harmonious urban-ru interactions. This paper aims to explore the status quo of URED in China at prefecture lev and to reveal the spatio-temporal patterns of URED and its differentiation regularity. The sults show that:(1) China’s URED level can be categorized into two parts, i.e., the easte and the western, according to the "HU Huanyong Line", presenting a pattern of "east high a west low" and the URED level improves on the whole with the increase of distance from t line;(2) China’s URED level can also be categorized into the northern and the southern pa according to "Kunlun-Qinling-Huaihe Line", presenting a pattern of "north high and south low and the URED level reduces on the whole with the increase of distance from the line;(3)the national level, China’s URED has a significant trend of spatial agglomeration, the high a low URED regions tend to be adjacent, namely, the URED level presents obvious region unbalance;(4) The five sub-dimension indicators of the URED level in the geographical spa also reveal similar regional differentiation pattern, and in the aspect of space a decreasi trend is found in the URED level from the eastern(northern coast, eastern coast and southe coast), the northeastern, the central(the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yell River) to the western(northwest and southwest); and(5) China’s URED at prefecture-le city can be divided into five types of differentiation areas. This study contributes to promoti the integrative cognition of the status quo of China’s URED and can serve as a scientific r erence concerning the decision-making of coordinating urban-rural development and pushing forward new-type urbanization strategy in China.