[Objective] To evaluate the suitability of rural residential land from the perspective of ecological environment protection, this paper took the conservation of water, soil and biodiversity into consideration according to the present characteristics of well-developed economy and superior ecological environment in Yixing City of Jiangsu Province. [Methods] Based on data of ETM, DEM, and vegetation coverage in Yixing City in 2010, the method of minimum cumulative resistance model was used to calculate the minimum cumulative resistance surfaces of water-soil conservation and biodiversity conservation, then the methods of spatial overlay analysis and natural break were used to determine the suitability grades by ArcGIS 9.3. [Results] The suitability of the rural residential land in Yixing City can be divided into four grades: highly suitable, medium suitable, lowly suitable and unsuitable, which accounts for 57.67%, 12.82%, 22.83% and 6.68% of the total area, respectively. [Conclusion] Suggestions of key development, moderate construction, restricted expansion and prior remediation were proposed at the above mentioned grade of rural residential land. The research results can not only satisfy the requirements of rural residential land layout in Yixing City for the purpose of ecological environment protection, but also can provide some references for the rural residential land layout optimization in other similar area.