Abstract: Promoting urban-rural integration and facilitating the bidirectional flow of urban and rural elements are core spatial objectives in the new era of China. The urban-rural fringe represents the region with the most intense interaction between urban and rural areas, serving as a key zone for breaking down barriers and promoting urban-rural integration. Based on a systematic review of representative case studies and scholarly literature, this paper synthesizes the evolving research perspectives on the urban-rural fringe, with particular attention to how data-driven approaches that integrate official statistics, remote sensing imagery, points of interest, and mobile phone signaling data have advanced the characterization of fringe features, refined identification methods, and revealed emerging developmental trends through spatial clustering and machine learning classification. It proposes an integrated analytical framework encompassing administrative boundaries, economic metabolism, social activities, material infrastructure, and the ecological environment. The paper further examines the characteristics and emerging development trends of urban-rural fringe areas and advances a set of strategic directions to support urban-rural integration and more efficient resource allocation. These include expanding analytical dimensions, enhancing data integration, refining identification criteria, elucidating mechanisms of internal and external interactions, and strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration. Collectively, these efforts offer actionable insights for optimizing public service delivery, directing infrastructure investment in transportation and utilities, delineating ecological conservation boundaries, and implementing place-based socioeconomic revitalization strategies in the urban-rural fringe regions.