Land use transition (LUT) provides theoretical and practical guidance for the regulation of the conflicts in human-land relationship in the process of social and economic development. As an important part of rural land use, rural residential areas are closely related to the migration and movement of rural population. Systematically understanding the transition of rural human-land relationship and its formation mechanism can provide a theoretical basis for rural transition and development. In view of the reality of the loss of rural population and the hollowing of rural residential areas in the process of urbanization, this study depicted the theoretical process of rural residential area transition (RRAT) from the perspective of the changing human-land relationship. Then, per capita rural residential area (PCRA) was used as the characterization index of RRAT, and spatial autocorrelation least linear quadratic regression model (ordinary least squares) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models were used to reveal the spatial and temporal characteristics of RRAT and its influencing factors and mechanisms. The empirical analysis of Shandong Province from 1996 to 2016 shows that: (1) The PCRA transition trend was not significant, with obvious regional incompleteness and imbalance, but only in some areas it showed an inverted U-shaped transition process from rising to falling. The reason is that the passive reduction of rural residential land lagged behind the active rural population movement. (2) The spatial distribution of PCRA showed clear heterogeneity and tended to gather in high or low value clusters as a whole; the Jiaodong Peninsula and the vicinity of the provincial capital economic circle showed a tendency of contraction and expansion of cold spots, while the vast plain showed a tendency of contraction and expansion of hot spots. (3) The transition of rural residential areas is affected by factors such as topography, economy, urbanization, and policy, the main factors in different time periods and the sensitivity of factors in different regions are different, and the process of influence has some instability. (4) The linkage between rural population movement and rural residential land change determines the process of accelerating the coordinated development of rural human-land factors. There are differences in the RRAT in various areas as well as in the driving factors. Relevant government departments should promote the people-oriented urbanization and accelerate the process of scale reduction of rural residential land use to achieve rural transition and development.