The reform of rural residential land system is an important part of the three pilots for rural land system reform. It is of great significance for protecting the rights and interests of farmers’property and for releasing and stimulating the vitality of rural areas in recent years. Based on the method of text analysis, the paper takes 52 policy documents of rural residential land system promulgated by the country for instance, regarding reform and openingup as key time node and the “policy intention” as the breakthrough point of the research. Then it analyzes the changes of the location of rural residential land. It is found that the core purpose of rural residential land management policy makes from a national point of view. It also explores the inherent logic of policy adjustment and the regularity of policy development. Through the text analysis of rural residential land management policies, different policy intentions of rural residential land management policies in the past 40 years of reform and openingup are shown. The research results indicate that the policy intentions follow the evolutionary path of “consolidating public ownershipstrengthening and standardizing‘managementprotecting farmers’property rights”. Furthermore, it is summarizes the trends of rural residential land management policies. Accordingly, based on the framework of socialist public ownership of land, the property value of rural residential land may become more and more apparent in the future. By the reform of rural residential land system and the strategy of rural vitalization, the government endeavors to augment farmers’property income and to expand farmers’incomeincreasing space.